Bioshock: Sekirei Edition
by Omega Overlord
Summary: It is the year 2020, and the city of Rapture has slept for a long time. But a driven engineer brings the city to life again, just in time for a boy from Japan, Sahashi Minato, and a group of young women, to find it as well.
1. Intro

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters of Square Enix or 2K games portrayed within.

Author's note: As Sekirei is, without a doubt, the lesser known of the two sides of this story I am going to save you readers, and myself, some time by condensing what I know of Sekirei into this brief forward. In this way I can focus most of the story on the action and keep explanations to the more in depth topics related to Bioshock. As I am willing to admit, despite my liking of the series, that Sekirei is rather shallow in the story department, especially in comparison to Bioshock.

Sekirei follows a young man by the name of Sahashi Minato who has failed the entrance exam to a university twice, despite being easily bright enough, due to severe bouts of nervousness during tests. A young girl named Musubi literally falls out of the sky and gets him involved in a huge "game" concocted by the CEO of the MBI conglomerate to use one hundred and eight alien life forms that were discovered in a crashed space ship as pawns in a huge tourney that he dubs the "Sekirei Plan" Musubi is one of those aliens and Minato eventually becomes her ashikabi master after kissing her, I am aware of how lame that sounds, but it happens mostly by accident.

To condense the rest of the series as much as possible I will say this, Minato gets sucked into a slew of problems and eventually bonds with a little girl, three other women, and a man whose body seems to be confused about which sex it is.

I may be dissing the story, but most of the characters make up for it, I say most because I hate Musubi with a passion, and I assure you I am not exaggerating with my portrayal of her. Some Sekirei fans might flame this because of the adherence to reality, but I frankly do not care.

Now please, continue reading and enjoy the story. Dark Hero Nightmare signing off.


	2. To the Depths

Sahashi Minato opened his eyes in alarm, then calmed as he realized that, for once, his gaggle of sekirei had not snuck into his room in the middle of the night. Since the assault that he led on Higa to free Uzume things had actually been rather quiet. Of course, quiet in the terms of the game, and he did hate calling it a game when it put people's lives on the line.

There was a knock on his door and he responded, "Yes? It's open."

The door opened and the landlady of Maison Izumo, Miya, was standing there with her perpetual smile, "Minato-san, breakfast will be ready soon."

He smiled and nodded, "Oh, thank you."

After Miya shut the door he stood and started to get dressed, wondering to himself how it was that Miya was always smiling, even when it was stupidly obvious that she was pissed off. Of course, what with that absolutely terrifying hanya mask that could appear over her shoulder at any time, she really never needed to look angry. When he was finished he started t make his way downstairs, checking cautiously around every corner just in case one of his sekirei felt the need to give him an early morning "surprise". That would usually be Kazehana or Matsu, as they seemed the least body shy of the lot.

He sat down at the table and slowly looked around, he asked the landlady, "Um, where is everyone else."

Miya just filled a bowl of soup and handed it to him, "Most of them were still asleep, but the others should be..."

The landlady was cut off by a commotion on the stairs. Two of his sekirei, Musubi, his first, and Tsukiumi, his fourth, were racing down, elbowing their way past each other in an effort to be the one that sat next to him. At the bottom, Tsukiumi tripped and made a grab for Musubi's ankle on the way down. She missed however and Musubi plopped down next to him with a huge ditzy smile plastered on her face.

Musubi threw her arms around him, "Good morning, Minato-kun!"

Unable to escape, and with his arms pinned at his sides, he could only return the greeting. He looked over Musubi's shoulder at Tsukiumi, who was red in the face with barely suppressed fury, and could only shrug helplessly.

Tsukiumi started to yell, "Musubi, how dare you..."

Tsukiumi stopped when Kusano, his second sekirei, sprinted around her and took a seat on the side of him opposite Musubi, and promptly clung to him while sticking her tounge out at the, still standing, Tsukiumi. His fourth sekirei stood in silence for a moment, then let out a defeated sigh and sat on the other side of the table. If he didn't know her better, he would have thought that her eyes were tearing up slightly.

He tried to ignore the two sekirei clinging to him and started to talk with Miya, "So, is there anything that needs to be done today?" It was the most reasonable thing to ask, especially considering that they had heard absolutely nothing from MBI for almost a week now.

Miya started to say, "Well, the windows need to be washed, and the..."

She was cut off when a voice came from directly overhead, "Minato-san, turn the TV on."

He looked up, and almost freaked out, his third sekirei was staring down at him through a hole in the ceiling, "Matsu-chan? What are you doing up there?"

Matsu shook her head, "That doesn't matter right now, just turn the TV on, you'll see why immediately."

He shot a glance at the landlady for permission, once Miya gave her consent he untangled himself from Musubi and Kusano, walked over, and turned the TV on.

The news was on, and the anchor woman seemed mildly alarmed, "In a surprise turn of events, MBI CEO and founder, Minaka Hiroto was found dead this morning in the courtyard directly in front of the MBI tower. Police are still working to find the cause, but inside sources have revealed that every bone in his body was crushed into tiny pieces. One could surmise that Minaka fell from the top of the tower, but it seems unlikely that so much damage could be sustained from a simple fall. The police are urging..."

He stopped listening at that point. With Minaka dead, did that mean that the game was over?

He asked Matsu, "When did this happen?" He could assume that she knew, what with hacking the MBI mainframe every night just out of principle.

Matsu clambered down from the ceiling before answering, "Minaka went missing around midnight. Nothing more was heard from him until they found his body this morning."

His head whipped around towards the door, half expecting some goons from MBI to be there, demanding that he hand over his sekirei. Instead, it was Seo Kaoru, with both Hirari and Hibiki right behind him.

Seo glanced around quickly, "So, I'm guessing that you've heard the news?"

Miya answered, "It's such a pity, he was such a nice man."

Seo chuckled, "You are kidding, right?"

The hanya mask appeared over the landlady's shoulder, "He was a better man than you, scum."

They all cowered under her glare, which was only intended for Seo.

He asked, "So, what should we be doing?"

Seo recovered from Miya's glare and answered, "Well, if I were you I would be putting as much distance between myself and MBI as possible. Things are going to get crazy around here for a while until they pick a new CEO. It might even be your mom."

He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "Ah, sure, that would be great."

Seo continued, "But until then someone might try and scoop up any sekirei that isn't already back in the labs. It would probably be a good idea for you and your..." Seo smirked, "...harem to get out of the city for a while."

At the word "harem" his face went as white as a sheet, "You make me sound like a pervert!"

Seo chuckled, "Relax, I'm just teasing you. But I was serious about leaving the city."

He thought for a moment, "How exactly would we do that? MBI still has the city under lock down doesn't it?"

Seo smiled, "Well, I do happen to have a friend that runs a ship that brings goods into the city. I saved his life once actually, so the guy can't say no. Just mention my name and he'll give you a lift to wherever you need to go, and I recommend Iceland, on the sole reason that MBI doesn't have any presence there."

He started to get up and go wake his other sekirei, but something about Seo's words gave him pause, "You said, get me and the others on board. You aren't coming?"

Seo waved him off, "Are you kidding me? I still have work to do, besides, I want to find whoever had the guts to kill Minaka and congratulate him or her." Seo turned to leave, "And the boat captain is Sado Kurosaki, runs a boat called the Ishimura. Ask around, he should be easy enough to find."

Seo walked out without another word. Both Hikari and Hibiki gave a quick bow before doing the same, appearing significantly relieved that Seo hadn't embarrassed them this time.

Matsu set her hand on his shoulder, "Minato-san?"

He thought quickly, if they stayed, and Seo was right, a whole army of MBI goons could rush Maison Izumo and take everyone back. If he left... it might be awkward initially, but he was sure that he could handle it. That his sekirei could handle it was an obvious answer.

He turned to face the four sekirei that were already present, "I guess we'll be taking a vacation for a bit." He turned to Tsukiumi, "Could you go and wake Kagari-san up? I'll go and get Kazehana-san."

Tsukiumi looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped and simply nodded before standing and going back upstairs. He waited for a moment, partly out of a desire to not be looking up Tsukiumi's dress while climbing the stairs, and partly out of confusion. Tsukiumi usually, no, always had an opinion. Something must be bothering her, and while he would have liked to take the time to figure it out right now, he was currently more concerned with getting all of them out of the city safely. When they were on the boat he should have ample opportunity to find out what was wrong. He filed the thought away for later and followed Tsukiumi up the stairs, stopping outside Kazehana's door.

He hesitated before knocking, Kazehana, his fifth sekirei, was usually drunk when she turned in for the night, and that meant she could be naked at the moment. He shook his head and took a deep breath, time was off the essence, he spoke while knocking three times, "Kazehana-chan?"

The door opened and his earlier fear was justified, Kazehana was nude from the waist up, and he felt his eyes pulled unwillingly towards her very large breasts.

Kazehana smiled at him, and he could have sworn he heard steam, "See something you like?"

He forcibly averted his eyes, "Ah, could you put something on. We need to leave."

Kazehana didn't move for a moment, "What happened?"

He answered, while still attempting to not look at her, "Someone killed Minaka, and Seo thought it would be a good idea to leave the country for a little bit."

Kazehana sounded sad, for her, and considering that she had formerly been in a sexual relationship with the psychotic CEO it was understandable, "Oh, what a shame, he was such a nice man." Then her attitude shifted, "Where are we going?"

He finally resorted to turning around, "Iceland, by boat."

Kazehana turned him back to facing her, and gave him a wink, "I'll be right down."

When Kazehana finally shut the door he shot a glance every which way, judging by his previous luck someone would have seen something and called him perverted, or called Kazehana slutty. But in a rare stroke of good luck, no one was there.

He had a thought, he had never actually left Maison Izumo with all of his sekirei at the same time, and he dreaded just how chaotic it was going to be. He heard a door close and turned towards the sound. His sixth, and only male, sekirei Kagari, was slowly making his way towards him.

When their eyes met, Kagari only nodded. Nothing else was needed.

City docks: forty five minutes later

Minato let out a deep sigh and tried to ignore the bickering that was going on behind him. Granted things weren't as bad as he had feared, but it still pushed him to his wits end. Kusano was having an argument with Kazehana of all people, and since Kusano didn't get what Kazehana was trying to say, her being a little girl and all, the argument just kept going and going... He had stopped paying attention to what they were arguing about, probably five seconds in, so he couldn't follow now even if he wanted to. When it came to the rest of them, things were relativly peaceful, Musubi was doing her usual thing and clinging to him, with Tsukiumi doing the same thing on his other arm and glaring at Musubi over his head. Kagari was standing a short ways off and seemed to be trying to appear that he didn't know them. At times, he could understand why Kagari felt that way. Especially what with all the perverse things that tended to happen.

He turned to look at Musubi, "Could let go for a moment?"

Musubi gave him a look that she had frequently, like she didn't even understand what he had just said, "Huh?" The look was cute but...

He gestured to the customs official presiding over the gates, "I need to talk to the man over there so I can find the captain Seo-san mentioned."

Musubi still didn't look like she understood, but she let go of his arm. He was about to turn and ask the same thing of Tsukiumi, but she let go of her own accord.

He turned to Tsukiumi anyways and rubbed his arm where she had been holding, "Thank you, Tsukiumi-chan."

Tsukiumi averted her eyes, but she did respond, "You're welcome, Minato."

He paused again, wanting to find out what was wrong, but he still didn't have the opportunity. On second thought, whatever it was, it probably wasn't a good idea to talk about it in the middle of a public area.

He walked up to the custom's officer, "Excuse me?"

The officer, a heavyset man with a similarly full beard, seemed very agitated, "What do you want?"

He tried to be polite, "I'm looking for a ship captain named Sado Kurosaki. Have you heard of him?"

The older man's face softened slightly, "Manners, that's a first for the day. On to what you were asking though, yes. The guy's just loading the last of his cargo onto the Ishimura. You'll have to hurry if you want to catch him. I'll get the gate for you." The officer pulled a key ring off of his belt, "Family outing?"

He didn't quite get what the man was asking, "I'm sorry?"

The officer gestured back to his sekirei, "All of them."

He thought for a moment, still not sure if he could safely disclose the details of the sekirei plan yet, "You could say that."

The officer smiled and tipped his hat after unlocking the gate, "Fair enough, enjoy wherever you happen to be going. Ishimura should be the fourth ship moored here."

He thanked the officer and walked through, Musubi promptly clung to his arm again, only this time it was Kusano that grabbed his other arm. He couldn't see Tsukiumi, but he knew from experience that she would have a crestfallen look on her face right now.

As he neared the Ishimura he felt his hopes rise. This had actually gone off without a hitch, something that almost never happened. At the base of a wooden ramp leading up onto the deck of the Ishimura there was a man standing with a clipboard in his hands. He was a tall, lean man, with a short stubble of grey hair and a wet looking mop of identical grey hair covered by a small skullcap. The man also wore a long brown coat that looked like it had been mauled by a dog several times, he also had a hurried air about him. He had to assume that this man was the captain.

He walked up to the man, "Sado Kurosaki?"

The man looked up from the clipboard, he had a very throaty, grizzled voice, "Eh? Who's asking?"

He responded, "Sahashi Minato, Seo said that you might help us out."

The man smiled, "Ah, old Seo is it? Well, a friend of Seo's is a friend of mine. What can I do for you?"

He hesitated for a moment, choosing his words, "Seo thought it might be a good idea to get out of the city for a while, what with all the chaos that'll be happening with the murder of the MBI CEO. We were wondering if..."

Sado cut him off and finished the thought, "I could help you out of the city. That sounds fair to me." Sado rapped the clipboard with the back of his knuckles, "But this isn't going to be a pleasure cruise, I'm short handed so I'm gonna put you to work. Understand?"

He thought for a moment, it really wouldn't be all that different from staying in Maison Izumo, so he responded, "That sounds fine to me." He turned to his sekirei, "Is that ok with all of you?"

The majority nodded silently, the only one that didn't, as usual, was Musubi, she was distracted by something flying overhead.

He cleared his throat, "Musubi-chan?"

Musubi finally looked at him, "Huh?"

He sighed, "Are you ok with working for our trip?"

Musubi gave him her usual smile, and nodded, "Yes."

Sado chuckled, "Well, from what I'm seeing I'll be getting a crew and a show, welcome aboard the Ishimura."

He shook the captain's hand, and followed up the ramp and onto the deck.

Tokyo: one week later:

Sekirei number 4, Karasuba slowly stalked along the city streets in the black night. Ever since that idiot Minaka got himself murdered things had been on a steady downward spiral, and she hadn't gotten to kill anything since then. Hence the reason for her wandering the streets at night on the hope that she would stumble upon another sekirei. Even a pathetically weak one would do, just enough to sate her blood lust for the time being. She would have gone after humans, but none of them could even attempt to put up a fight. Most ran the instant she looked them in the eye. What she would give for the opportunity to fight Yume...

She shook her head and muttered to herself, "Like I'll ever get the chance now."

Musubi and her ashikabi had vanished without a trace, as had all of the other sekirei that that stupid boy had managed to bond with. And with Musubi gone, so was Yume.

A deep, sonorous voice flowed out of the darkness, "Endless desire to kill, so like you number four."

She had her blade out in half of a heartbeat, "Show yourself!"

The voice chuckled before answering, "Look up."

She did, and floating in thin air about five feet in front of her and seven feet up, was undoubtably another sekirei. The figure dropped to the ground and into the light of a street lamp so she could get a better look. The man was tall, heavily muscled, and what was visible of his flesh was heavily scarred. Through the black hair that hung part of the way over his face she could see that there was also a scar that ran across his face from the middle of his forehead to just above his right eye. He wore a dark grey robe that dimly resembled something she had once seen on a mannequin in a museum on Japanese history, and there was a katana on his hip.

The figure scowled, which gave the impression of a statue doing the same, "To wantonly slay your own kin, I am disgusted by you. Even the meddling that the humans did cannot account for all of it."

She shot back a smirk and readied herself to charge, "And what do you care? You had the same done to you."

The figure shook his head, "Obviously you do not recognize me. Understandable after all this time, but no, I was not tampered with. Fortune seemed to favor me by separating me from the rest of you in the crash. Although I do wonder if I could have performed my duty had I not."

She straightened up, "What nonsense are you babbling? There were one hundred and eight of us. Is this some kind of mind game?"

The expression on the man's face changed from contempt to, pity, "Not exactly, I was the one meant to protect all one hundred and eight. I am sekirei number zero, Jango." The expression shifted back to contempt, "Even from each other."

She dropped back into a combat stance, clearly this "Jango" had hostile intentions, "And what do you plan to do about it?"

Jango made no move to draw his blade, "The obvious thing, I'm going to stop you right here and now."

She charged at Jango and swung for his neck on the right side, "Not going to happen!"

Jango made no attempt to get out of the way, indeed all that he did was lift his left hand across his body and held it, palm open, in the path of her sword.

She put extra muscle behind the swing and screamed, "Die!"

Her sword stopped, dead in the air, a full foot from Jango's hand. Not wasting time being surprised she attempted to pull away and try from a different angle, her blade would not move back either, nor could she.

Jango slowly lowered his left hand and set it against her stomach, "You never were one to think much before wading in swinging. Although I imagine that this will be the first time it will have cost you."

Before she could reply she went from completely static to going backwards at a dizzying speed as what felt like a ball of pure force hit her in the stomach right where Jango had put his hand. When she finally skidded to a stop against a building Jango was standing about five feet away.

The zero number gazed upon her with a face devoid of emotion, "Are you going to submit? Or do I need to keep hurting you?"

She used her sword to steady herself as she stood, "I'm not done yet."

Jango shook his head, "Pity." Jango then extended his right hand towards her, fingers clenched like he was holding something.

What he was holding quickly became apparent, her. She felt like her body was being held in place by a giant, invisible hand. Slowly, she started to float into the air, higher and higher. When Jango himself was little more than a speck on the ground she came crashing down at terminal velocity and hit the ground hard enough to make a crater, and she still could not move of her own volition.

Jango floated down into the crater she had made and set his boot upon her stomach, "You know, you did choose this outcome."

She spat back, "What are you?"

Jango narrowed his eyes, "Exactly what I said I was. The zero number sekirei, meant to protect the other one hundred and eight."

She shook her head and attempted to stand, but was pushed back down, "Not that, how could you beat me down so quickly?"

Jango smirked, "I believe the humans call it telekinesis. I simply prefer to think of it as mind over matter."

She snarled, "So now what? You kill me?"

Jango's blade slid out of its scabbard and into his hand without him touching it, "You certainly deserve it."

She closed her eyes in anticipation, suddenly afraid for the first time in her life. She still didn't want to die in spite of everything. There was a soft click of metal on stone and she opened her eyes. Jango had stabbed the cement right next to her ear.

The zero number explained, "Despite everything that you have done, I am not physically capable of killing my own kin. Humans are a different matter entirely, but I still do not slaughter them without just cause."

She felt her confidence return, "So I suppose you just let me go with this lesson and be on your way?"

A shadow fell across Jango's face, "Oh, I said I can't kill you. That does not mean you are walking away with a sound body." Jango rolled her onto her stomach with his boot and sank the blade of his katana slightly less than an inch into a spot just between her shoulder blades, "The first thing will be to do away with your connection to this foul ashikabi..."

She screamed, "NO!"

Jango spoke as one might to a misbehaving child, "You say that now, will you feel the same when the genetic tampering has been removed." The steel of the sword started to get warm, "Now, this won't hurt a bit." Jango paused, "Ok, I'm sorry, this is going to hurt a lot."

Her screams echoed in her own ears, and it was a wonder that the entire city was not awoken.

Three weeks later: 433 km west of Iceland

Minato flopped down on his cot in his small cabin. Working on a ship was a lot harder than he had thought it would be. So contrary to what he had planned getting aboard he still had not had enough time to talk to Tsukiumi about what was bothering her. It just kept getting pushed back and pushed back. On a positive note things hadn't gotten any worse, aside from Musubi almost capsizing the ship by accidentally dropping the anchor. Captain Sado had not been happy about that and sent Musubi to the brig. Which was essentially a small, empty steel room that you sat in for hours on end. He felt bad about it happening, but it was Sado's ship, and his word was law. Not that much different from living in Maison Izumo as a matter of fact.

He sighed and spoke aloud to the metal ceiling, "Well, at least this trip is almost over."

Come to think of it, most of his sekirei should be asleep by now. Maybe Tsukiumi was still awake and he could find out what was wrong right now.

He slung his feet onto the metal floor and stood, muttering to himself, "No time like the present."

When he reached for the door however, a large slab of metal dropped down and there was a hiss as an airtight seal was created.

He stood for a moment is confusion, "Wha..."

The intercom buzzed to life and a raspy, computerized voice spoke, "Hull breach detected, sealing all personnel cabins and life support systems."

He pounded on the door, yelling, "What's going on?"

The intercom buzzed again, "Ejecting personnel cabins in three, two, one..."

An explosion went off and threw him against the back of his cabin, then he felt no more.

An unknown time later:

Minato slowly awoke to the sound of a light tapping sound on coming from the walls of his cabin. It was dark, but he could still see to a certain extent, and when he looked, he was standing on the back wall of his cabin.

The tapping was suddenly accompanied by a voice, English, "Hello? Anyone alive in there?"

He crawled up to the small porthole in what used to be the door, "Is someone there?"

The voice responded, in a tinny tone, "Huh? What's someone from Japan doing all the way out here?"

He struggled to see out and saw a tiny glowing light, "It's a bit complicated."

The voice relented, "Well, fair enough. Could always use an extra set of hands down here."

His mind suddenly snapped fully awake and he thought of his sekirei, "Please, is there anyone else alive?"

There was a pause, "Well, from what I can see on the sonar I've got five other pods strewn across the sea floor. I have a few drones on their way but I don't know if there's anyone alive in them yet."

He blurted out, "What? I'm on the bottom of the ocean?"

The voice sounded amused, "Well yeah. You thought your boat got torpedoed and you would magically wind up on solid ground?"

He was dumbstruck, he was on the bottom of the ocean, in a small metal box, and he was still alive. Lucky didn't even begin to describe it.

The voice piped up again, "Ok, got a drone coming up on the first cabin right now." There was a pause, and the digitalized version of a wolf whistle floated through the metal, "Well, there's a real beauty of a woman in this one. Long black hair, wearing some kind of purple outfit, and got a really nice pair of boobs on her. And amazingly, she appears to still be asleep."

He let out a sigh of relief, "Kazehana-chan. Anyone else?"

There was another pause, "Ah, got another girl, red hair, glasses, white slip. What kind of boat were you on? A pleasure yacht?"

He gave an indignant shout, "NO!"

The voice carried on, not really seeming to care, "Ok next pod. Got two people in here, and now it actually makes sense now that you weren't on a pleasure cruise. One of them is a little girl, long blond hair, long white dress. And there is also, ah, a woman with short silver hair in a black outfit."

He muttered to himself, "Black outfit, Kagari-san! But, Kagari-san is a man."

There was a pause, and the voice indignantly responded, "Ok, I may have been down on the bottom of the ocean for two years, but I can still tell men from women. And let me tell you this fact of life if you havn't figured it out yet, men don't have breasts. Care to explain that?"

He hesitated, unable to come up with an explanation that didn't involve a lengthy explanation of the sekirei plan, "It's ah, complicated."

The voice laughed, "Suit yourself. I get the feeling that there are quite a few complicated bits that I'll have to hear later. But on to pod four, got a brunette inside, short hair cut, pink and white outfit, looks like she has absolutely no idea what's going on. Sound familiar?"

He smiled sheepishly, even though it was likely whoever was speaking couldn't see him, "Musubi-chan."

The voice laughed again, although this time it was more of a snort, "Sounds like you know she's trouble, but I'll save judgment till I see what she does. But so far as pod five is concerned, well, this one landed with the porthold down in the muck. I can't see inside."

He started to get frantic, according to the descriptions of the man on the other end only Tsukiumi wasn't accounted for, "Can you listen? Like what you are doing to me?"

There was a tired sigh, "Well, I suppose I can try. Give me a second." There was a pause, then a shout of surprise, "Sweet mother of God!"

He reacted with alarm, "What? What happened?"

The man on the other end sounded angry, "Oh I'll tell you what happened, the instant I set the listening device to the side of the blasted pod I hear screaming loud enough to shatter glass. I swear my ears are bleeding after that racket!"

A glimmer of hope flared within him, "Do you have any idea what they were saying?"

The voice growled, "How could I not? I can still hear it echoing inside my skull. The woman, and I have no doubt that it was a woman because no man could have a voice that shrill, was spouting some nonsense about how a man's legal wife should never have failed her husband so. I assume then she was talking about the corpse that is resting on the roof of your little cubicle then?"

He did a double take, "What are you talking about?"

The voice said, "Just a second." The glowing light vanished for a moment, then a partially destroyed head appeared in its place, "Look familiar?"

He was unable to stop himself from screaming and falling down to the bottom of his former room. The head was gruesomely deformed by whatever had happened to th Ishimura, but he could still recognize the face of the captain.

The disfigured head went away and the glowing light returned, "I'll take that as a yes. And I'm sorry for scaring you. But was that the lady's husband?"

He replied honestly after collecting himself for a moment, "No, that was Sado Kurosaki, he was the captain."

The voice sounded dissapointed, "Ah well, I guess the young lady won't have a body for the funeral, sad really but what can you do?" There was a pause, then the voice continued, "You know, it just occurred to me that I've been chatting away with you this whole time and I still don't even know your name. But I'm not the type to ask without giving something in return, so I tell you my name and you tell me yours. Sound fair?"

He paused only for a moment, it was awkward to speak to someone and not know their name, "It does, I'm Sahashi Minato."

The voice sounded downright cheerful, "Minato is it? Alright, as promised, I'm Ivan Dragovitch." Ivan chuckled, "Well, I suppose that's enough for the formalities. I still have to get you and the rest of the survivors inside."

A loud clank shook the pod, "Wait, get us inside where?"

Ivan replied and almost sounded happy, "Just wait for about five seconds and you can see it with your own eyes. Trust me, no words I could use could do it justice."

There was a loud crash as the pod was flipped so the floor was once again the floor, the pitch hurled him against the metal rather hard.

Ivan spoke again, "Sorry about that. Worker drones you know? About as delicate as a bull in a china shop." Ivan waited until he was back on his feet, "Well, take a look out of the porthole and be ready to have your breath stolen."

He approached the porthole, and looked outside. Instantly, the exact thing Ivan had said would happen, happened. Out in the water, close enough that he could have swam out to touch it if he wanted to. All that he could see was a giant mosaic of glittering glass. It was like seeing the entire skyline of Tokyo under the ocean, shining like the stars in the sky.

The small robot that Ivan was speaking through floated in front of the vista, "Well? Are you completely enraptured?"

In spite of himself, he could only nod.

Ivan started to laugh hysterically, "Wow, I never thought I would get to tell that joke." Ivan took a good while to calm himself, but eventually finished, "Minato, allow me to be the first, and probably only one in the city to say this to you." Ivan paused for dramatic effect, "Welcome to Rapture."


	3. First Blood

Tokyo:

Jango stood perched high atop the unfinished girders of a construction site. From here, he could get a good idea of the size of the task still ahead of him, and it was a daunting one. From here, each sekirei seemed to glow like a candle in a sea of darkness. Slightly less than one hundred and eight lights across the entire city. Without really thinking about it he put his hand to the scar on his chest that bound him to Karasuba, while he was pleased that it would be quite some time before number four would harm another sekirei, or anyone for that matter, he could not help but feel a small measure of self loathing for his actions. Every one of the one hundred and eight sekirei, no matter where they were, was connected to him. It was what had been thought to be the most effective way to ensure that he would fulfill his duty.

Their pain, he felt, their joy, he felt as well. It was visible in the light he could see from a distance. The happy ones were brilliant beacons in a concrete ocean, compared to the dull flicker of the ones that were being abused, and every dim light was like a knife twisting around in his flesh. A knife that began to burn if he delayed dealing with it. The problem was, there were so many dim lights, he honestly did not know where to begin. In retrospect though, it was their pain that awoke him from the pod on the bottom of the sea.

He gazed into the sky at the moon, and sighed, "Sometimes I really hate what I am. But what else is there? The majority of these humans have proven to be craven wretches. Not worthy of the affections that are manufactured and planted within the hearts of my kin. If only..."

He was cut off by a particularly sharp jab of pain, and his eyes automatically zeroed in on the light in the mosaic from whence the pain came. He felt across his chest for the exact scar out of the one hundred and eight that was aching, number forty three, Yomi. Having made his choice, he vaulted out into the void and let the power of his mind take him there. While he levitated his way there he attempted to deduce just what the cause of the pain was. He could see no other sekirei in the vicinity, so that must leave it in the hands of a human offender. When he arrived overhead, it became blatantly obvious that his assumption was correct. Yomi was seated on the ground, trying to back further into the corner of a dark, dirty alley than the concrete walls would allow. With a man, likely her ashikabi master, slowly approaching.

This was one of the times when he could not help but hate the humans, if that man down there was even remotely worthy of companionship, then the look of terror and betrayed trust upon Yomi's face would have stopped them in their tracks. As it did not, the ashikabi was worthy of only one thing, death.

He dropped to the ground with an audible splash as his feet landed in a puddle, "Stop right there, filth."

The man whirled about and he could see the animal hunger in the eyes, "Who...?"

He cut the man off, "That is none of your concern. What should be, is living, and I'm only going to offer this once. Walk away, right now, and I won't kill you on the spot."

A wicked smirk crossed the man's face, "An errant vigilante? You needn't bother. I payed for this fair and square. So you can go and shove it."

He felt his anger building, which was not a good sign, when he was angry he tended to go overboard on the damage, "So, you are not her ashikabi, just a vile human that bought her for the night. That only makes me hate you even more."

The man pulled a pistol, "You think I care? Now turn around and float away before I put a hole in your head the size of a dinner plate."

He stood his ground and glared, and if looks could kill the man would have been dead the instant he dropped into the alley, "If you wish to die, then try it."

His complete lack of fear put the man off, "Uh..." Then pissed him off, "You arrogant bastard. Take this!"

The gun snapped up and fired twice with a roar that seemed even louder in the confines of the alley. But as the twin rounds neared him they slowed as if they were moving through gelatin instead of air, finally stopping a full foot from his face.

He reached up and plucked one of the bullets out of the air, examined it in disinterest for a moment, then tossed it over his shoulder, "Come now, surely you can do better."

Fury twisted the man's face, "DIE!"

The gun fired again and again, and every round suffered the same fate as the first two. None making it inside the foot wide buffer that he unconsciously projected. The gun clicked on empty a good twenty times before the shooter realized it.

He fingered one of the floating bullets and spun it around to face back towards the man with the gun, "You know, I think I am paraphrasing one of the better works of literature that humanity has created when I say this, payback's a bitch."

He gave all of the floating bullets a gentle push and sent them all back into the one who had fired them. Sending them hard enough to hurt, not kill. Then, while the man was cowering, he walked over and hoisted the other man physically against the wall of the alley.

He backed off and held the man in place with his mind, "Any last words?"

The vile man started to babble incoherent nonsense.

He mentally seized hold of the man's throat and spine, "I suppose not." With a certain sense of satisfaction, he crushed the man's spine into one solid mass of bone, killing him instantly and eliciting a fountain of blood from the throat.

He sensed Yomi start to move away and gently siezed her ankle with his mind, "Yomi, come here."

Though it was clear that she didn't want to, Yomi followed his order and slowly walked over to him, "Why?"

He paused for a moment as he chose his words, "Do you still have such love for your ashikabi, even after he sold you?"

Due to the conditioning Yomi responded with the obligatory, "Yes." But he saw the crack in her will, and forged ahead.

His next words were chosen explicitly to hurt, "And I would guess that this is not the first time."

Yomi's will broke, and she dropped to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. And as if the waves of pain he vicariously received weren't enough, it hurt him in his core just for saying what had caused it.

He spoke softly, trying to calm Yomi down, "Shhh, it's going to be ok."

This was the part of his duty that he hated, even though he knew that these attractions were constructed, constructed or not it still hurt them when it was severed.

He put his hand in front of Yomi's mouth and gave her a one word order, "Bite."

At this point, Yomi was too distraught to do anything else. When he felt her teeth on his hand he started to remove the genetic conditioning, like he had done to Karasuba. It was a long process, and incredibly painful for whomever he was helping and, by extention, him. But, when it was done, it all became worthwhile. That was the rewarding part of his duty, it felt good to help his kin. Even if he was required to do it.

Bottom of the Atlantic: 433 miles west of Iceland

Minato sat in silence as his former cabin on the Ishimura was pushed along the sea floor towards Rapture. He could not help but wonder what dwelled within those shining glass walls. The phrase, 'every rose has its thorn' came to mind. The glass exterior looked too perfect, too serene.

A light shined in, and Ivan's voice followed shortly thereafter, "I've seen that look before. Although granted it wasn't on the face of a kid that was literally getting dragged into Hell in a hand basket."

He looked up into the light and asked the question that had been nagging at him for the past hour, "Why is Rapture so dangerous?"

Ivan took a second to respond, "Well Minato, that question is one that would take a very, very long time to answer." There was another pause, "But I suppose you deserve to know what you are getting thrown into." Ivan began, "So, the absolute essential thing to know, is that every living thing in Rapture is going to want to kill you. Every person in the city has been turned into what I know as a splicer. Essentially, a splicer is a drug addict going through severe withdrawal symptoms. I'll get into what they are hooked on later. But as I said, every splicer in Rapture, man or woman, is going to try and kill you and each of your friends. The only reason I've lasted as long as I have is because I set up shop inside Minerva's Den, security and tech central for the entire city. Robots do a fine job of putting holes through any splicer that wanders too far in."

The explanation answered some questions, and made new ones, "Then why are you down here in the first place?"

Ivan sounded annoyed, "Look, I'll tell you, but not right at this instant. I kind of have my hands full trying to coordinate all the drones that I sent out to bring you inside. So, unless you want yourself or one of your friends to drown I suggest that you leave me be for a while."

The light went away and he saw the robot that he had been talking to float away through the water. At the same time he noticed that he was being pushed towards what looked like a hole cut in the side of the glass and metal perfection. At first it seemed random, but when he looked closer he saw a small sign above the opening that read, airlock. He had no idea what an air lock was, but it seemed to be how Ivan was going to get all of them into the city. The drones pushing the metal cube he was is shoved the entire mass directly up against the airlock. Out in the water he saw small flames touch the sides of the metal.

Ivan's robot returned, "So, you figured it out yet?"

He shook his head, "Not really."

Ivan's bot extended what looked like an antenna, and began to gesture to the work the drones were doing, "What I'm doing is creating a watertight seal so I can drain the airlock. Then you can walk right in with a minimum of water falling on your head."

He paraphrased, "You're welding the pod to the side of Rapture?"

Ivan sounded impressed, "In layman's terms, that would be it. Quite the bright fellow aren't you?"

On the topic of being bright, a thought occurred to him, "But, how are you going to get everyone else inside?"

Ivan didn't respond for a moment, "I take back what I said about you being bright. I'm getting all of you in the same way."

He pondered that for a moment, "Then, you are going to weld on, then cut off each pod?"

Ivan laughed, "Of course not, each of you are coming in at a different airlock. That's oceanic drift for you, the other pods dropped down all over Rapture. Closest one to you is about a forty five minute swim away, provided you can walk through walls. So your going to be on your own when you get inside..."

He felt his blood run cold, he was going to be completely alone inside a city where everything was trying to kill him.

Ivan went on, "But I would count yourself one of the lucky ones. Where you are coming in I can see very few splicers. So you probably won't get killed yet."

He shuddered, "That's comforting."

Ivan laughed again, "Hey, I think I'd call you the second luckiest one. The red head dropped down right outside of Minerva's Den. I'll be bringing her right on inside, hopefully the girl knows her way around a computer."

His spirits lifted slightly, he was happy that Matsu wouldn't be exposed to any harm, "I think Matsu-chan will surprise you in that department."

Ivan sounded delighted, "Really? Good, could use an extra set of hands in here."

He asked, "You mentioned Minerva's Den, where exactly is everyone else?"

Ivan muttered, "Ok, let me check here, the one you called Musubi is being dragged into Pauper's Drop as we speak. The place was built as a slum for the construction workers that built both the city and the Atlantic Express. I didn't really get around to fixing much in that particular district."

Knowing Musubi, he found himself asking, "There isn't anything, important, in Pauper's Drop that could get broken?"

Ivan sounded wary, "Ah, I don't think so. Although I suppose she could manage to drop a train car onto the tracks and freeze up the whole system if she were REALLY stupid." There was a pause, "Musubi isn't that stupid, right?"

Despite the obvious answer, he defended Musubi, "Of course not!" Then he relented, "Maybe."

He could hear the shudder in Ivan's voice, "Now you've got me worrying, great."

He laughed uneasily and attempted to change the topic, "Well ah, what about the others?"

Ivan responded in a flat tone, "Nice change of topic, real subtle." Despite the snide remark Ivan did answer, "So, miss black hair giant tits..."

He interrupted, "Kazehana-chan!"

Ivan relented, "Ok, sorry, I didn't catch her name before. Like I was saying, I'm bringing Kazehana in to Siren Alley. And trust me, you are seriously lucky that you aren't in this district. Splicers seem to love the place for some reason, don't know why. The place used to be the mason's quarters, where the architects of Rapture used to live."

He commented, "That doesn't sound so bad."

Ivan chuckled, "Oh, when I talk about it in the past tense certainly. One of the great citizens of Rapture, Augustus Sinclair, referred to the Siren Alley of today as, "the place you go to scratch an itch that you are ashamed of, even in a town with no laws." Paints a rather raunchy image doesn't it? Although in that outfit Kazehana will fit right..."

He angrily interrupted, "Don't talk about her like that!"

Ivan got defensive, "Easy tiger, one thing your going to learn about me real quick is that if I have a thought, I share it. Deal with it." The Russian moved on without another discussion, "And next we have, ah, the little girl and the he/she."

He started to open his mouth in protest, but shut it after realizing the futility of it.

Ivan kept talking, "Those two are entering Arcadia at the moment. It's where Rapture used to grow all of the green stuff and the fruits that kept the citizens healthy. Also a great place to relax, provided that you like green for scenery. For meat, that came out of Neptune's Bounty, fish fish and more fish, what I wouldn't do for a burger right now, or a steak, something made out of beef..." Ivan trailed off dreamily.

He barked into the radio as the water in the airlock started to drain, "Ivan!"

The Russian snapped out of it, "Eh? Oh, sorry. Daydreaming seems to happen a lot when you go without something for long enough, two years down here, would you believe it?"

He halfheartedly kicked at the door, "Impressive, now what about Tsukiumi?"

Ivan snorted, "You mean the screamer? Well, I'm still dragging her pod across the ocean at the moment, but I will be dragging her inside the Adonis Luxury Resort. There she will replace you as the second luckiest. I havn't seen a single splicer in that district for months. Must be nothing there that they can appreciate anymore. Third place I managed to fix up while I'm talking about it. Tsukiumi might not want to leave when she sees the sheer luxury of the place. I'll admit there were a couple of times I wished I could just forget that I was a hunted man and just kick back in one of the spas. Pity though, splicers would be on me faster than a cheap suit. Bet you must be feeling pretty jealous right now, you get a life threatening situation, and she gets cakewalk."

He shook his head, "No, I'm glad that she'll be safe."

Ivan sounded impressed, "Well, how chivalrous of you." Then he chuckled, "You Minato, are currently entering Dionysus Park. The former home of insane social psychiatrist, Doctor Sophia Lamb. She invited famous artists from all over Rapture to huge mixers to convert them to her psycho commune called "The Family." Crazy bitch, I'd rather choose to help other people than have it forced upon me..." Ivan trailed off again, "You know, never mind. Just a piece of advice from me, until you find yourself a weapon. If something moves, hide, and pray to whatever god you please that you don't get found. The splicers may have terrible aim, but they will kill you with a lucky shot. Now get inside and make your way to the train station, I'll be bringing you to Minerva's Den from there."

The airlock slid open and he stepped through into a water logged atrium. There was coral growing on the walls, and water dripping from the ceiling. But in a way, it was rather pretty. Provided of course that the roof above him didn't cave in and flood the place. But with all the noise from water dripping he would be hard pressed to figure out which way a sound was coming from. Speaking of which, he did hear something over the sound of the water. A light splashing sound, almost like steps.

He suddenly remembered Ivan's advice and hurried behind a stack of crates that were close to the wall. It would honestly have taken someone with the eyes of an eagle to see him through the crates, so he should be fairly safe, as long as he didn't make any noise.

Off in the distance, but growing closer, he could hear a voice with the steps, but he didn't understand the words, English, "All the roles I get offered these days, slapstick, lowbrow, undignified crap. I'm a star, I deserve better!"

He might not have understood the words, but he could tell that it was a woman speaking. Was it possible that there was another sane person alive in Rapture that Ivan hadn't known about? He stuck his head around the stack of crates to get a better look. The woman that wandered into view did not look very healthy, her dress was torn in several places, she looked like she was limping, and what skin he could see was pale, mottled, and splotchy. She was wearing a large mask, for what reason he could not tell, and she also held a large wrench that had likely seen better days. As he watched, the woman started to wander by, muttering to herself, then she tripped and fell down into a particularly large puddle and started to sob in a rather convincing manner.

Aware of the risk he was taking, but concerned nonetheless, he stepped out from behind the crates and started to speak, "Hello? Are you ok?"

The woman's face snapped around at him fast enough that it looked like it hurt, she then stood and immediately started to charge, wildly swinging the wrench, English, "This is MY show! Get out of here!"

He backed off quickly, while ducking to avoid the wrench swings. Clearly, Ivan's advice was sage, don't talk to the locals. Another wild swing clipped him upside the head and sent him sprawling, within reach however, was an iron bar. He grabbed the bar and rolled over onto his back, the bar held at the ready to defend himself from any more wrench swings. More swings came, but every one hit the floor around him, none even came close to him.

Acting out of instinct, he coiled up his legs and kicked the woman solidly in the stomach. His opponent was surprisingly light and crumpled at the hit. The hit also removed the woman's mask, and revealed the most hideous, disfigured, mutated face that he had ever laid his eyes upon. Most of it was a swollen pink mass that was unrecognizable as formerly human, but set against the backdrop of a human body and some slightly recognizable features only served to make it all the more frightening.

Acting out of both fear and self preservation he swung the iron bar from left to right with as much muscle as he could put behind it. He connected with the woman's skull right in the center of the mutated pink mass, where the forehead should have been. Upon contact, the splicer's head exploded like an over ripe fruit, splattering the room, and him, with bits of brain matter and blood.

Rapture: Adonis Luxury Resort

Tsukiumi slowly stepped out of her former room and rubbed her head, trying to massage away the remnants of a headache. Whatever had shoved her inside of this place had not been very gentle about orienting her former room with the door. It didn't help that she had no idea whatsoever where she was. But at the moment, she couldn't care less where she was. The single thought running through her mind was where Minato was, and how she could get to him as quickly as possible.

Before she rushed off blindly she took a moment to look around at where she was, and some part of her made her stop to take a longer look. Her immediate surroundings were absolutely beautiful, white stone columns, wrought iron decorations, three crystal chandeliers... She mentally shook herself, she didn't have time to marvel at the decor. For all she knew, Minato was already in danger and needed her help. A small whirring sound caught her attention.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a small robot with a propellor approaching, and it was making no effort to hide its approach. A man's voice, slightly digitized, exuded from the machine, "Well if it isn't the human banshee. Like what you see around you?"

In spite of herself, she did take another quick look around the interior before answering, "Well, yes I do."

If a machine could smile, this one would have been beaming, "Excellent, always does an engineer good to hear that his work is appreciated. Especially after all that time it took me to fix Hephaestus and Neptune's Bounty."

She felt a moment of confusion, "What are you talking about?"

A sigh escaped the machine, "I forgot you were going to be just as clueless as the boy. Oh well."

She felt her pulse start to race, "Minato?"

The man sounded amused, "So you know him I take it?"

She pouted indignantly, "Well I should hope so. I am his legal wife after all."

There was a long pause, "Eh, you're Minato's what?"

Her temper started to flare up, "His legal wife."

The man's tone took on a note of appeasement, "Ok, fine. Then it was him you were screaming about in your pod?"

She leaned towards the flying robot for emphasis, "Yes!"

There was a pause, then the voice of the man rang again, "Could you do me a quick favor?"

The suddenness caught her off guard, "Ah, what do you want?"

The flying machine extended a short arm and beckoned, "Just something quick, I'd like you to step in front of this security camera for a second so I can get a look at you."

She felt suspicious, "You can't see me already?"

The flying robot beckoned again, "I see you on a thermal scope, which means I see you as a red blob."

She still hesitated, suspicion rooting her in place.

A sigh escaped the machine again, "Look, I don't like not knowing what whomever I'm talking to looks like. So I'll make you a deal, you walk in front of the camera, and I'll get you to Minato as fast as I can. And I promise that there is nothing lewd or anything about the camera."

With her suspicions allayed slightly she did as the man asked. She stepped into the green light of the camera and stood still for a long moment.

A dazzled whistle came through, "Wow, had I known that Minato was married to a beauty such as you I probably wouldn't have come up with so many nicknames for you. Minato must be hardly able to keep his hands off of you huh?"

She was cruelly reminded of how Minato had barely looked her way twice since bonding with her, "I, I would rather not..."

The man on the line quickly retracted what he had said, "Oh, ah, sensitive subject. I get it. Sorry for bringing it up." There was an awkward silence, "By the way, I'm Ivan Dragovitch. I'll be the one trying to reunite you with your husband."

She took a deep breath and recovered her composure, "Thank you, now where do I go?"

Ivan sounded a great deal more serious than he had when he first spoke, "The door at the far end of the baths will open as soon as you walk up to it. You want to go through it and take the second left to pass through Demeter's Banquet Hall on the way to Ryan Amusments. That's the fastest way you're going to get to me in Minerva's Den. I'm leading Minato here as well, and if everything goes according to plan he should get here before you. I'll keep him safe for you."

She was unaccustomed to such kindness, except from Minato, and she reacted the only way she could think of, "Ah, thank you."

Ivan sounded downright somber, "Don't mention it."

Rapture: Minerva's Den; security control

Ivan leaned back in his chair and took the headset off that he had been using to communicate with both Tsukiumi and Minato. If those two were married it would make some kind of sense as to why Tsukiumi had been freaking out in her pod. Sure, had they been friends there would be some degree of a freak out, but ones of the magnitude Tsukiumi had had were reserved for lovers. A few things didn't fit though, mostly the presence of three other beautiful women that Minato seemed to care for just as much. He refused to count the little girl and the he/she.

Minato didn't seem like the perverted type, indeed, he sounded more like the kind that would faint at the sight of a woman's naked body. Still, four absolutely gorgeous women fawning over one guy sounded like one of the perverted fantasies that he would have come up with before he had come down into Rapture.

He smiled and shook his head, muttering to himself, "Two years under the ocean away from all human contact sure would put a dampener on the old sex drive, of course until a genuine beauty seems to practically fall right into my lap."

Not that he would try and steal Tsukiumi from Minato, he might have been gone from human civilization for two years but he doubted that free love was ever something that would ever be practiced, nor adultery tolerated. Still, he could not help but feel a slight shred of envy. On the topic of women though, the red-head, Matsu, should be arriving at the door to his little lair pretty soon.

He shut off one of the monitors and used it as an impromptu mirror, and what he saw wasn't exactly people friendly, "Hmm, do I have the time to shave and give myself a quick haircut?"

He flicked a small shot of Winter's Blast onto a rusted razor that he had been forced to use after his first "home" in Rapture had been overrun. The ice coating prevented him from getting tetanus off the rusty metal while still giving him the edge he needed. After a few quick seconds of honing the edge he scraped it along every side of his face and let the matted, twisted locks of hair fall to the floor. He then took handfuls of his hair and hacked at them with the same blade. It wasn't going to look perfect, but in Rapture you couldn't be too picky with looks.

He took another quick look after shaving off about two feet of hair, "Better, good thing that I'm not splicing up like the rest of those crazy idiots. Then my face would be downright hideous."

There was a knock on the double door that led out of the security den.

He stood and picked up his shotgun from its faithful post at his side, "I'll be right there." Once he stood by the door he mumbled to himself, "Now what was the combination again, thirty four, twenty five, sixty one?" When he put the numbers into the locks the first two undid themselves, before re-locking when he put in the third.

He tapped his forehead, "Right, last one's sixteen." He put the number combination in again the right way and the door unlocked. When he opened the door however, there was no one immediately standing there.

He muttered to himself, "Odd, I could have sworn..." A familiar sound behind that made him think of wind him made him stop speaking and whip around, shotgun first, to clock the Houdini splicer in the face.

He sneered as he stuck the barrel of the shotgun in the splicer's face and pulled the trigger, "Not going to work, no matter how many times you try. There is no wind down here, so it's obvious to a trained ear like mine."

The spray from the shotgun blast peppered him with small flecks of brain and bone.

He picked at one of the bone fragments, "Great, and after all the trouble I went through to get myself presentable."

There was a light tap on the metal door and he turned towards it. Matsu was standing there, eyeing him with curiosity.

He gestured towards the corpse, "I hope you aren't squeamish about blood. Houdini splicers try to sneak in here and kill me every once in a while."

Matsu shrugged, "I've seen my fair share of blood, so it's not that much of a problem."

He smiled and pointed at the auxiliary security console, "Good to hear, and I hope you know your way around a computer, because we're going to have our work cut out for us getting the rest of the crew here."

Matsu squealed with delight and sprinted over to the computer station. Immediately upon sitting down she had optimized every system that she had access to and several that she shouldn't have been able to get into.

He stood in stunned silence for a moment, "Well, I guess Minato's praise wasn't misplaced. How did you do that?"

Matsu only turned her head to look at him and flashed him a coy smile, "Natural talent."

He closed the door, triple locked it, and hurried back to his station, "Well good, and since I'm not the type to look a gift horse in the mouth, let's get to work."

Tokyo:

Jango sat under the half finished concrete roof in an abandoned MBI construction project. Sharing a simple meal of rice and sushi, that he had earned doing some chores for a kindly elderly couple, with Yomi. After he had finished removing the genetic conditioning from Yomi she had calmed down enough to explain to him what had happened after her defeat at the hands of number eighty eight.

He recited what Yomi had said to clarify, "So you were defeated, deactivated, dragged back to MBI, held for a while, then reactivated and released back into the city, where you automatically sought out your former ashikabi?"

Yomi nodded, head on her knees and her hands holding onto her death scythe so hard that her knuckles were bone white, "Yes, then he started..." Yomi could not bring herself to say that she had been sold for the night numerous times.

He unconsciously squeezed the hilt of his katana in anger at the memory, "And how many other sekirei does this boy have?"

Yomi thought for a moment, "I think he has six more, and one of them is number five."

He felt for the fifth scar on his torso. Once he touched it, every light that he could see went out, save one, the light of number five, glowing indifferently. From that, he could tell that five neither liked, nor hated his ashikabi, not that hard to believe when he considered the Mutsu's personality.

He removed his finger from the fifth scar and five other lights appeared close to the same general area, "And the five women? How does this Mikagami boy treat them?"

Yomi thought for a moment, "I'm not sure about most of them, but he likes to keep Akitsu to himself."

He tried to ignore the flash of anger the thought induced, "And how does Akitsu feel about that?"

Yomi shifted uncomfortably, "That's a little bit complicated, because she was, ah, discarded."

Even without knowing what Yomi meant the thought incensed him, "Could you, elaborate?"

Yomi traced a shape on the floor with her scythe, "MBI, they made it so she couldn't bond with an ashikabi even if she tried. So Mikogami really isn't really her ashikabi, she just thinks of him as if he were."

He scoffed, "And as the price she becomes the boy's toy. Great trade off."

Yomi defended Akitsu, "She's terrified of being abandoned again."

He sighed and put a hand to his forehead, "I did not mean to sound as if I were condemning her. I just despise the situation that Akitsu is in. Her, and all of you, deserve better than that." He picked up a loose piece of concrete and crushed it with his mind, "That is why on the morrow, we will be paying Mikogami a visit, one that he will not live through."

Yomi's eyes widened, "You're going to take on all of the others, by yourself?"

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, "No, you will be helping me, but only briefly. I only need to kill Mikogami to void the problem of fighting the rest, and that is what you will do."

Yomi's eyes widened even more, "You want me to kill Mikogami?"

He nodded, but did not open his eyes, "Indeed, I think that it would be a sort of poetic justice, don't you think? He called you useless, sold you numerous times, he deserves everything that he will get, and more."


	4. Bonds Are Strained

Rapture: Dionysus Park

Minato pushed himself away from the slowly spreading pool of blood oozing from the corpse that he had created. It was almost as hard to bear that thought in and of itself than any stench of blood. He, he had killed someone, their blood was on his hands, as well as everywhere else. It didn't help to think that whoever it was had been trying to kill him too, just the act of breaking the woman's skull open like an egg was going to haunt him for the rest of his life, however short it was going to be down here.

He heard a small whirring noise and looked up to see one of Ivan's robots approaching him, the Russian sounded cheerful as always, "Well, Minato how..." Ivan paused when his robot noticed the body, "Oh, guess you got right down to it huh?"

He barked back in anger, "How can you talk about it so casually? I just killed someone!"

Ivan made the robot shrug, "Easy, I do it all the time down here."

He spoke the only thought that came to mind, "You, you're a..."

Ivan cut him off, "A monster? Yeah I get that one a lot from the splicers. Especially the pitiful women who think I've stolen their children for experiments. Poor souls do not realize that their children were taken before I had even heard of Rapture. But what can I do about that? Answer, kill every last splicer." Ivan chuckled, "Speaking of which, I had to blast the head off of one just before Matsu got here. Snuck in here to try and kill me."

He grumbled, "You're not helping."

Ivan's tone shifted to a more serious note, "Well that's just too bad. You want to live, then you're going to have to kill them. Besides, you wouldn't want to get yourself killed and leave your beautiful wife all alone now would you?"

He picked his head up from confusion, "What are you talking about?"

Ivan started to laugh again, "Oh my god, that has got to be the most stupid thing I have ever heard. You seriously can't have forgotten that you are married to a busty, blond beauty."

The point hit him in the face like a brick, "Oh, you mean Tsukiumi?"

Ivan made the robot do a nodding motion, "Exactly. I'm quite jealous now because of that you know? But don't worry, I won't try to steal your blushing bride. In fact, I made a promise to her that I would get you two back to each other safely."

The statement seemed odd, "You, promised that to Tsukiumi?"

Ivan's robot shrugged, "What can I say, I have a weakness for women who look on the verge of tears. On that topic though, she got this pitiful look in her eyes when I observed how hard it must be for you to keep your hands off of her. Care to explain at all?"

He shifted uncomfortably, "It's..."

Ivan finished the thought, "Complicated. You really are going to have to give me something soon on this. I don't like not knowing what's going on."

He used the iron bar that he was still holding to help him stand, "I'm sorry, but I don't think well when I'm covered in blood!"

Ivan fell silent for a moment, "Touche, but I guess that there will be plenty of time for talk when you get to Minerva's Den. Same advice as I gave you before though, move quickly and quietly." The antenna on the robot pointed at the bar he was holding, "And you might want to keep that thing handy in case you run across another splicer. After all, only took one solid hit to the head to take out that last one, shouldn't be too hard for you to do it again. Keep that thing at least until you get your hands on a gun. Should eventually be able to take one off a splicer should you sneak up on him or her." The robot started to float away, "See you at the train station, Minato. Don't get killed, cause I would really hate to see your wife crying over your corpse."

The robot flew up and away into a vent high on the ceiling. He supposed if he stacked up enough crates he could reach the opening, but then he wouldn't be able to climb the sheer walls inside. Barring that option, the only other thing he could do was to follow Ivan's advice and move on to the train station. He glanced down at the corpse he had created and edged his way around it. All that was left was to move forward.

Rapture: Minerva's Den

Ivan took his eyes off of Minato and shot quick glances at every other screen, taking particular note of the one showing Kazehana in Siren Alley. Not that he was a pervert, but just looking at the woman got his blood pumping. He'd been politely flirting with Kazehana for the past half hour whenever he had not been keeping tabs on Minato and Tsukiumi. Up until now the others had shown themselves to be quite capable of following directions. Tsukiumi just seemed a little bit thick headed, rather than stupid.

He shot a glance at Musubi, for whom he had had to repeat his directions three times over before she got it, and the brunette was walking in front of one of the cameras in Skid Row. Musubi had both hands clutched over her stomach and looked pale.

He accessed the camera's speaker, "Hey, something wrong? Did you get shot?"

Musubi turned to the camera, and spoke in a rather pathetic tone, "I'm so hungry!"

He felt suddenly quite stupid, "Ah, ok. Go to the Fishbowl Diner in the next area. It's not running but you should still be able to find something in the kitchen."

Musubi's face brightened in a way that might have been considered cute by some, but the stupidity of the girl was detracting from that aspect in a rather large way. The brunette then charged off camera and he heard the startled roars of anger from a crowd of splicers. There were a few dull, meaty thuds from off camera, and then the pulverized corpse of a splicer sailed into view and skidded to a stop solidly in the center of the camera's sweep.

He muttered to himself, "At least the idiot seems to be able to fend for herself. I don't know what I would do if I had to hold that damn girl's hand through all of Pauper's Drop."

The one of the cameras in Siren Alley started to buzz, and Kazehana's voice carried over the speaker, "Yoo hoo, Ivan-kun. Are you there?"

He though for a second, his Japanese was a bit rusty but he could have sworn that there was some significance to Kazehana switching from using "san" to "kun". He replied, "Yeah? I'm right here, right where I've been the whole time."

He brought the camera in question up on the screen right in front of him. Kazehana was standing just below it, in a small room off of the main street of Siren Alley, holding up a large glass bottle. Behind her, there was a cabinet filled with other glass bottles, one shape he recognized as a bottle of Old Harbinger Beer.

Kazehana held the bottle in her hands up to the camera, "What is this? It smells nice but I wanted to make sure it was something I should drink."

He obliged Kazehana and zoomed in on the label, followed by the rest of the bottles to save time, "The one you are holding is a bottle of Old Tom Whiskey, everything else is some other variety of hard liquor. Scottch, brandy, merlot... you name it."

Kazehana's face lit up, "Would you recommend it?"

He started to respond, "Well, I suppose. I really don't drink anything but vodka and..."

On the screen, Kazehana was completely ignoring him and had chugged the entire bottle of whiskey in five seconds flat. A normal person would have passed out completely after half a bottle, he found himself unable to speak as he watched Kazehana chug bottle after bottle of heavy liquor. She didn't even pass out until the entire cabinet was empty.

The only words that he could get out of his mouth were, "Holy shit."

He felt a small weight on his shoulder, it was Matsu, "What's going on?" Matsu looked at the screen and saw Kazehana, passed out in the middle of a pile of empty wine bottles, "Oh, I wouldn't worry about her. That happens all the time."

While he was aware of what Matsu was probably going to say, he felt the need to check, "Kazehana gets completely wasted all the time, to the point where she passes out?"

Matsu started to walk back to her chair, "Oh yes. She went without for the entire trip on the ship, not surprising that she would go overboard the instant she caught a whiff of booze. It's funny really, she still calls herself one on Minato's wives when she is barely cognizant of any of the time..."

He sharply cut Matsu off, "Now wait just one minute, you said ONE of Minato's WIVES."

Matsu siezed up, "Ah, I didn't, that's not what I meant!"

He started to charge a shot of Electro Bolt, "Explain, or I shock you."

Tokyo:

Jango slowly looked skyward to the pinnacle of Mikogami's home. Up there, waiting for her opportunity, was Yomi. It had taken the better part of an hour for him to convince her to do what he had asked, but eventually he had succeeded by appealing to her newly awakened sense of kinship with the others. The plan was quite simple really, when Mikogami sent all six of his sekirei to attack him, Yomi would drop in through the roof and kill Mikogami. All he had to do was cause a significant enough commotion to draw Mikogami's lust for adding more sekirei to his collection.

He paused outside the doors and tapped his chin thoughtfully, "Now, what is showy enough for a bratty little child?" After a moments deliberation, "Brute force would probably be best."

With a flick of his wrist he sent a wave of telekinetic force forward to smash open the doors. When the interior security forces responded, he simply gathered all of them together with his mind and slashed through them with one stroke of his sword.

He looked towards the ceiling, where he was sure at least one camera was watching him, "Come and get me, petulant child."

Mikogami estate: Roof

Yomi watched in silence as the six other sekirei under Mikogami's thumb headed downstairs to do battle with Jango. In a few more minutes she should have her chance. She wasn't sure that she could kill Mikogami in cold blood, but when push came to shove she knew it was the right thing to do. Still relatively foreign to her was the though that it would be helping the other sekirei, but considering how Mikogami had treated her, it was a reasonable thing to think about.

She slid the pane of glass aside and dropped to the floor as silent as a cat. Over on the other side of the room, Mikogami was watching the fight down below on a security camera, practically salivating at the thought of adding Jango. She took a step towards the boy and started to lift her scythe, mentally and physically bracing herself to bring the blade down into Mikogami's back. She took one step closer, and her foot caught on the corner of one of the many rugs, causing her to fall flat on her face with a crash.

Mikogami turned around and flashed her an evil grin, "Ah, Yomi. You're late, starting to enjoy your new job?"

She started to open her mouth to object, but Mikogami cut her off, "You know what, it doesn't matter. Just get your useless self downstairs and help the others bring me that sekirei."

Out of long habit, she stood and started to say, "Of course..." She stopped herself, "No."

There was a pause, then Mikogami turned back to her, "Excuse me, did you just refuse?"

She put the blade of her scythe between herself and Mikogami, "I'm not your slave!"

Mikogami shook his head and nudged her scythe aside with one index finger, "What ideological garbage have you been listening to? If you weren't my slave, why do you still feel compelled to follow every order that I give?"

She took a step back in order to fit the blade back between them, "It's just habit."

Mikogami started backing her up towards the wall, leaving the blade of her scythe perched upon one of the buttons of his jacket, "Habit? Take your head out of the clouds, I own you. The same as I am going to own that sekirei in the lobby."

She snapped, "Never!"

She drew the scythe back, twirled it, and drove the blade up into Mikogami's stomach hard enough to have the blade sticking out of his back.

The boy looked down in astonishment and grabbed at the scythe as if to confirm that he was actually impaled, "You, I can't believe this, you actually..." Mikogami coughed up about a fistful of blood, "I, I can't die yet."

In the heat of the moment, she was unable to stop herself, she crooned in Mikogami's ear, "Of course you can, and you are."

In one fluid movement she pushed Mikogami off of her scythe with her foot, then with a quick pirouette and flick of her wrist, she severed Mikogami's head from his shoulders. The cut itself was so clean that the head did not actually leave the body until it hit the floor. The head then rolled forward to hit against her boot, eyes looking up at her accusingly.

Mikogami estate: Lobby

Jango caught the blade of number five before mentally shoving the other swordsman across the lobby. Engaging six other sekirei at once was an extremely demanding task, even for his vast array of telekinetic tricks. Akitsu in particular was causing him problems by repeatedly freezing his body, something his mental buffer did absolutely nothing against. If Yomi didn't hurry up he was going to have to stop pulling his punches, and that would be a bad thing for everyone involved.

Mutsu slammed the scabbard of his sword against the floor and shot another shock wave at him, "Come now, this is a futile dance and you know it. Just come quietly and..." Mutsu stopped speaking suddenly and his hand clutched at where his heart was.

The same reaction was repeated across the lobby, by all but Akitsu.

In spite of the meaning behind the gesture he could not help but smile, "You can thank Yomi for that. Mikogami is now dead."

The look of surprise faded from Mutsu's face, and it faded back into the expressionless mask that was the usual setting, "You managed to convince Yomi to kill her own ashikabi? You must truly have a silver tongue to accomplish such a task."

He shook his head, "You must not have known about Yomi's "night job" then. In light of that it is a wonder she didn't do it of her own accord already."

A woman's voice came from his left, "Night job?"

He turned to face a young woman wearing a white dress, with grey hair. In the heat of combat he had not taken the time to check who she was, but he took that opportunity now. He traced the scars on his chest until it felt right, number sixty five, Taki.

He responded, "Well Taki, it would seem that your beloved master was making a little extra money on the side by selling Yomi nightly. That just so happens to be how I found her, about to be abused by one of Mikogami's "customers"."

A shudder went through the women, again with the exception of Akitsu, who was standing a distance off, seemingly numb to the world.

Mutsu noticed his gaze, "That one will require a delicate touch, she was emotionally unstable when she was picked up. Now though, doubly so at least."

Mutsu's words were echoed in Akitsu's stance and presence, eyes seeing nothing, ears hearing nothing, almost dead to the world.

Rapture: Dionysus Park

Minato slowly crept his way towards the splicer, male this time, that was fiddling with a safe pushed into a corner. He had thought long and hard about what Ivan had said, and despite his reservations he had to admit that the Russian had a point. The splicer before had attacked with lethal intent simply upon sight, there was no reasoning with them.

The splicer in front of him was muttering to itself, again in another language, English, "Stupid safe, open! I want in!"

The splicer hit the safe with its fist out of fury just as he accidentally kicked a bottle on the ground. He froze for a moment just to make sure that the splicer had not noticed. When he was within five feet of the splicer, he abandoned stealth and rushed it with a yell. At his cry the splicer made a move to pull some variety of pistol from a holster on its hip, but the splicer's fingers fumbled with the grip and he connected with the bar before the gun could be brought into play.

He brought the bar back up and shot a nervous glance around to make sure that the splicer had been alone. After about five seconds he relaxed his grip on the bar and knelt down to catch his breath as the adrenaline faded.

Right on cue, he heard a small whirring sound as Ivan's robot made another appearance.

The Russian's voice sounded rather smug, "Well, well Minato. I didn't take you for the kind of man that would keep himself a harem."

Something in his tone made him think that Ivan already knew, but out of habit he replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ivan laughed and his suspicions were confirmed, "Nice try, but Matsu already told me everything. Like that fact that each of these beautiful women are in fact aliens, and that each one of them is gifted with some various manner of super power. Made a lot of sense when I saw that he/she burn its way through all the splicers in the train station, and that little girl wrap others up in greenery. Doesn't change anything though. I still need the help of you and your sekirei to work out what's going on in this city and either get out or fix the problem."

He asked a question that came to mind, "How and why did Matsu-chan tell you anything?"

The smug tone returned, "Easy, she let a little too much slip and I pushed for the rest. I'll admit threats were used. The non-lethal kind."

His temper uncharacteristically flared, "What did you do to Matsu-chan!"

The smugness vanished and the tone changed in an attempt to defuse his temper, "Easy Minato, I didn't actually do anything. I only threatened to give Matsu a nasty shock if she didn't talk."

The attempt did not succeed, "You're not helping."

Ivan didn't seem to care, "Yeah, well, you can slap me when you get to Minerva's Den. Train station is just up ahead so shut yourself inside the ticket booth until I can get the train there."

The little robot started to fly away but he stopped it, "One last thing, this splicer had a gun..."

Ivan's tone became giddy, "Did he? What'd he have?"

He set the iron bar on the ground and pulled the pistol out of the holster, with a small bit of trouble. It was no wonder that the splicer had had trouble, the holster was a glove that fit tightly around the pistol. Once drawn it fit right in the palm of his hand, almost like it belonged there. As strange a though as it was, the pistol was rather stylish.

Ivan groaned in envy, "You are quite possibly the luckiest bastard I have ever had the pleasure of talking with. That right there is a vintage WWII Luger pistol, and it looks like it's been well cared for, with a ready supply of bullets." Ivan paused for a second, "Have you ever fired a gun before?"

He replied honestly, "No, never."

Ivan sighed, "I thought as much, but that's the perfect weapon to get you started with. It's easy really, just point the gun at what you want to hit, line up the sights on the top of the gun with the specific area you want to hit, and pull the trigger. I would tell you to practice on something, but it would probably be a better idea to save what bullets you can."

Before Ivan could fly off he asked one last question, "How much further to the train station?"

Ivan responded while flying away, "Just through the room up ahead. When you get inside just hole up in the security booth till I can get the train to you. Only got three working cars if you understand."

As the robot flew away he worked to undo the holster from around the splicer's waist. He needed something to carry the gun in after all. Once done, and satisfied with the fit around his waist, he approached the door to the room between him and the train station. He held the Luger out in front of him, ready to shoot anything that was waiting. The door opened as he neared it.

Inside, a male splicer was crouching over the corpse of another splicer. The living one's head snapped up at the sound of the door opening and without hesitation picked up a bigger gun and started shooting.

He dove down behind a stone fountain that had long ago stopped functioning, and could hear the sounds of bullets chipping away at the stone, accompanied by the splicer's insane laughter. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then flung his arm out over the fountain, lined up the shot, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

He dove back down and fumbled through examining his gun. Why didn't it shoot? His finger brushed against a small switch on the side that caught his attention. He didn't know what the two words said, but without many other options he flicked the switch and attempted to steady his nerves to try for another shot.

When he felt ready, he rose, aimed carefully once again, and pulled the trigger. A quarter sized hole appeared right between the splicer's eyes and the louder gun's fire ceased immediately. He made a mental note of what the switch did and holstered the Luger after flipping the switch again. No need for the gun to go off while he was wearing it. Inside the train station he quickly found the security booth that Ivan had mentioned and closed the door behind him. Hopefully, when the train arrived he could get to Mnerva's Den and back with his sekirei.

Rapture: Ryan Amusements

Tsukiumi slowly walked into the train station of Ryan Amusements and carefully looked around. She hadn't seen anything that was a threat to her yet, but it never hurt to be cautious. Honestly, she had seen nothing else alive since she had entered the city. Just a few cameras high on the wall as she walked by. Slowly swiveling to follow her movements. What she had been worrying about was Minato, and she couldn't help it. Even with Ivan's generous promise to keep him safe, she would never be able to forgive herself if Minato were hurt.

Speaking of Ivan, a small whirring sound announced the arrival of his flying robot, "Hello, you walking water faucet."

She was accustomed to such a nickname from the landlady, so it really did not bother her anymore, "Ivan, what is it this time?"

The man responded, "Not all that much, just letting you know that Minato is at the train station in Dionysus Park, waiting for the train."

She felt her spirit soar, "Then he is safe?"

The flying bot floated towards the tracks, "For now, yes. But that does mean that you have a rather lengthy wait ahead of you. All of the train cars that are working are already on the way to pick people up."

The soaring of her spirit wavered, "Then, what do you propose I do?"

Ivan's robot fiddled with a set of wires above the train tracks, "Not much you can do. Although I do have something of a suggestion if you have nothing else in mind."

Slightly peeved that she would not be able to get to Minato yet, her tone was slightly angry, "What?"

Ivan responded almost without apparent care, "I would suggest that you give the park a walk through."

She shouted indignantly, "You want me to wander through a park? While Minato is in danger?"

Ivan was unaffected, "If you would rather stand here for two hours waiting, then do so. I just thought it would be a better idea to do something."

She hesitated for a moment, Ivan's attitude starting to break her down, "I, suppose. If you are sure that there is nothing else I can..."

Ivan spoke two words before she could finish, "I'm sure." With her silence Ivan must have assumed that she was agreeing with him, "Park's right over there, through the glowing archway. Learn some Rapture history while you're in there."

At Ivan's prompting she looked to her left, where an archway was now flashing. She took one last, longing glance at the train tracks, then slowly started to walk towards the gate.

When she walked through into the park proper, she was greeted by a loud, mechanized voice, "Welcome, citizen of Rapture! Ryan Amusements is proud to have you here. Please, enjoy the park, and..." a burst of static cut the voice off.

Ivan's robot flew by, "Sorry about that, I need to get working on the audio recordings, really outdated by today's standards."

She watched as the robot started working on a panel, "This isn't just an ego trip of yours, is it?"

Ivan responded while still fiddling with the wires, "Yes and no. Yes because I really want a live, sane person to see what I've done and give me some honest feedback. No because I was serious about the two hour wait, and with just about everyone waiting for the train I have no need to watch them. So you will excuse me if I try to find something to keep me busy, being idle down here for extended lengths of time is a surefire way to wind up as crazy as the splicers." A chuckle escaped the Russian, "And you would probably go crazy with worry over Minato."

Still not happy about the idea she scuffed her boot against the floor, "I suppose you are right."

A short laugh burst from Ivan, "Damn right I am. Now, if the lady would kindly follow the flying robot..."

Ryan Amusements: ninety minutes later

Ivan wound up the tour, "And? What do you think?"

Her mind was completely boggled. The amount of obsessive paranoia that it would take to fuel anyone to completely forsake the only world they ever knew, she couldn't picture herself ever doing something like that.

Ivan seemed to draw his own meaning from her silence, "I know, Andrew Ryan was a genius and a visionary, but a paranoid madman all the same. A city with no law? Not the kind of place to live if you want stability. Especially after the discovery of ADAM..." Ivan trailed off.

The way he trailed off drew the question out of her, "What exactly is this, ADAM?"

Ivan sighed, "The short version, it's essentially a genetic goo that lets whoever uses it to rewrite their genes to whatever they happen to want. Granting ordinary people extraordinary powers."

She commented, "That doesn't sound so bad."

Ivan let out a sad laugh, "Sure, that's what everyone in the city thought to. Until people started going insane from overuse of ADAM. Take too much of the stuff and your brain starts to go all bonkers. That's what the splicers are, regular people that abused ADAM to the point that they are no longer human."

She sensed that Ivan wasn't saying everything, "What about you?"

Ivan snorted, "Well, you caught me. I've used ADAM on myself, hard not to and simply survive down here. But don't worry, I'm well within the safe limit for a man of my height and weight, so I'm not going to go insane on all of you."

She mumbled to herself, "I think that you already are."

She noticed that Ivan was no longer paying attention to her, and was instead seemingly talking to the air. After a few seconds it became obvious that he was talking to one of the others, who exactly was not clear.

Ivan sounded almost hysterical, "Wait, no! Don't touch that..."

Over the speaker there was a huge crash of metal on metal. She even felt the floor beneath her shaking.

Ivan's voice turned openly hysterical, "Heh, why? WHY? MUSUBI, YOU STUPID BITCH!"

Dionysus Park: Train station

Minato slumped down in the operators chair of the security booth. Two hours of waiting was a long time, but at least he hadn't been shot at during that time period. A huge rumbling shook the station and threw him out of his seat.

A small screen crackled on and the face of a large, lean man with a roughly shaved beard, and an equally messy haircut came on, "Well, Minato, looks like your brunette "friend" has fucked you over."

At this point, he was able to put a face to the voice, "Wha..."

Ivan snarled, "Musubi did exactly what I told her not to do. She pressed the big red button and dropped the train car onto the tracks. Although luckily for the he/she and the little girl, and Kazehana, they were on the other side of Pauper's Drop and they can still get to Minerva's Den by train. I don't feel very generous towards Musubi right now, so I'm going to make her wait for a good long while before I send another train to fetch her."

He unconsciously reached for the Luger on his hip, "Then, what about Tsukiumi and me?"

Ivan shook his head, "Well that's the rub, isn't it? I've worked out a relatively safe route for Tsukiumi, thought you would appreciate that, by having her take a shortcut through Hephaestus. Place is way to hot for the splicers, so they tend to avoid it."

A feeling of dread seeped right into his bones, "And me?"

Ivan's face looked rather sympathetic, "The only way I can get you to Minerva's Den now, by train, is by having you traverse Olympus Heights, aka, splicer central. If anything could be called a splicer hive, the Olympus Heights would be it."

His dread justified, he was almost beyond words, "How, how many splicers?"

Ivan looked away from him for a moment, "From what I can see on the few working cameras I have left there, at least twenty. Knowing the area though, I'd guess about fifty."

He was unable to speak the word, he simply mouthed the word in silence.

Ivan nodded, "I told you, Musubi fucked you over. Maybe you should reconsider her as your sekirei. Not sure if you can do that, but it does bear thinking about."

The screen went out, and he was left to stew in his own fears.


	5. Evolution

Tokyo: Mikogami estate

Jango looked out over the city from where the building's former owner must have done the same. However, while the building currently had not been bothered by the human authorities, it was only a matter of time before some human somewhere realized that something was wrong and sent the law enforcement, however incompetent that they were, to investigate. While the human guns were absolutely no threat to him or the other sekirei, it would result in a pointless slaughter for the humans. Despite his hate for the humans, he would rather avoid such a confrontation. After all, those humans would just be doing their jobs, and there was a certain dignity in that.

Mutsu walked up behind him, "Have you thought of anything?"

He shook his head, but did not turn around, "No, but we will need to move soon regardless." After a pause he added, "How is she?"

He did not need to add a name, Akitsu had been practically catatonic after seeing Mikogami's headless corpse. She would follow simple orders, and eat or drink should she be told to do so, but other than that Akitsu was more of a statue than a person.

Mutsu's voice took up a tiny tone of melancholy, "No change, and being right where Mikogami died isn't helping anything."

He turned around, "Well, do you have any suggestions? Because you have been in this city far longer than I have."

Mutsu looked out over the city with a thoughtful expression on his face, "Well, there is Maison Izumo in the north. Miya is the landlady."

He cocked an eyebrow, "Number one went into business? Now that is an odd choice, do you have any idea why?"

Mutsu shook his head, "No, but she is the sole reason that Mikogami and the other two greater ashikabi stayed out of the norther section of the city."

He thought for a moment, debating with himself as to whether or not to investigate the option. At best, it would give him a place to work from, a stable place, and the other sekirei that he rescued would be among other of their kind. At worst, well, he really couldn't think of a worst case scenario. He nodded to Mutsu and started to walk over to the rest of the sekirei, who were idly passing the time in whatever manner they could. In Yomi's case, that was sharpening her scythe.

He cleared his throat to get their attention, "Ok, I would like a general consensus before proceeding, would you all be comfortable if we moved to Maison Izumo in the north?"

Taki nodded, "I would, although at this point I think that anywhere that doesn't remind me of Mikogami would be for the best."

The rest of them that spoke had a similar reason.

He nodded with approval, "Very well, no sense in wasting any more time here then." He gestured towards Akitsu, "Yomi, would you kindly be the one to lead Akitsu? We don't want her falling behind and getting lost."

Yomi sighed and stood, "Fine, I'll lead the ice queen."

Contrary to most of the sekirei present, Mikogami's death had actually positively affected Yomi. She smiled, laughed, joked. When he asked her about it, Yomi had simply replied that she felt free for the first time in her life. It was a nice change to see, although some of the jokes she made were slightly inappropriate for the situation. Like one that she had made about Mikogami, not that he was forgetting what the boy had done, but there was no need to spit on a dead man's grave.

He looked northward across the concrete skyline, "Miya, I hope you are ready for visitors."

Rapture: Ryan Amusements

Tsukiumi was shocked by Ivan's rage filled outburst. Not that she hadn't though the same thing about Musubi at one point or the other, but to say it out loud with such hatred took something especially bad.

Worry leaked into her voice, "What's going on?"

Ivan seemed to put a significant amount of effort into calming himself, and was only partially successful, "Well, that brunette bitch did exactly what I was afraid she would do. Musubi dropped a train car onto the tracks over in Pauper's Drop, effectively sealing off both you and Minato from Minerva's Den. By train at any rate."

She almost panicked, "But, is Minato..."

Ivan sharply cut her off, "He's fine, for now. But he'll have to traverse the most heavily splicer infested area in all of Rapture."

She pointed at the robot and barked a command, "You need to get me to Minato right now!"

Ivan let out a dry, cynical laugh, "As much as I would like to, that's impossible. But I'm not about to have you stuck out here by yourself, so..." A red light appeared behind her, "I'm having you take a shortcut. Through the belly of the dragon, so to speak. There is a vent that connects Hephaestus to both Ryan Amusements and Minerva's Den, you'll be taking that."

Her temper started to run wild, "Why didn't you mention this before?"

As with every other outburst that she had had, Ivan was unfazed, "Because if Rapture is Hell, then Hephaestus is the seventh circle. It is really, REALLY hot down there. You might evaporate."

She turned around and started to stalk towards the vent, burning hot air whipping her hair back, "I'm not made out of water, and I'll do anything for Minato."

Rapture: Minerva's Den

Matsu listened to Tsukiumi's angry declaration and watched on her screen as the water sekirei dropped down the vent into the furnace. It was hard not to admire Tsukiumi's dedication, even if it did get her in trouble sometimes. By the same token, it was also hard not to sympathize with her, especially when Musubi seemed to get in the way of just about all of them. Thinking of that, the only time she ever had any time alone with Minato had been a few times in her hidden computer station back in Maison Izumo.

Ivan tore off his headset and slouched in his chair for a moment, before looking over his shoulder at her, with a tired, still angry look in his eyes, "Is Tsukiumi always this obstinate?"

She smiled and shook her head, "Only when Minato's life is on the line. It's worse when she can't do anything about it, like now."

Ivan put his head in his hands, "You can say that again, oh, what I would do for a bottle of vodka right now."

She typed in a few commands on her keyboard, checking the progress of the two train cars that were still on their way, "Still mad at Musubi?"

Ivan swiveled his chair to face her, "No, really? It took me six months to get the trains working again when I got down here, and she fucks it up in about two seconds. I swear, when she gets here I'm gonna smack her so hard, right in the face, that her head is gonna pop off."

She smiled uneasily, "You are kidding, right?"

Ivan grimaced, "About knocking her block off, yes. About giving her a flying bitch slap, no. And I'll bet that I'm not the only one who's wanted to do that every once in a while." Ivan changed the topic, which seemed to calm him to a degree, "And what about Kusano and the he/she? They getting here anytime soon?"

She quickly checked her screen, "They should be getting here in another five minutes or so, provided that Ku-chan doesn't get tired."

Ivan smirked, "Little girls, what can you do?" Then added, "And the trains?"

She replied without looking, as she had checked that at the same time, "Half an hour for Musubi-chan, fifteen minutes for Kazehana-chan."

Ivan stood up and stretched, "Well, that's good at least." A thought seemed to occur to Ivan, "Matsu-san, quick question, how close, genetically, are you sekirei to humans?"

The randomness of the question caught her off gaurd, "Ah, I don't know. Why do you ask?"

Ivan shrugged, "Just wondering, you know, if Minato had stuck the plug in the outlet if you catch my meaning."

She had to fight to keep her composure, the sheer bluntness of the question causing her to think of certain things, "No, not yet."

Ivan blinked a few times and tugged on one side of his bushy mustache, "Has anyone ever bothered to tell you that you have the most perverted rape face ever? And I grew up in America just so you know, the people there have some pretty dirty looks that they give each other."

Without anything to say back, she just smiled and felt her face start to burn with embarrassment.

Ivan went on, "And you're probably banking that you'll be his first I'd suspect..."

Her voice came out as almost a mirror of Miya's when the landlady was pissed off, minus the hannya mask floating over her shoulder, which would have been really useful right now, "Enough."

Ivan laughed, "Suit yourself. I was just poking fun." The Russian then glanced at the heavy door, "I suppose I should go and open the door about now..."

When Ivan turned his back to her she delved into the research logs that she had snuck into on ADAM. Apparent right away was that Ivan had put a significant amount of ADAM into his own gene structure, as she had seen the Russian flipping through several different plasmids while waiting for something or other, at her count it was somewhere around seven plasmids. What she wanted to know was if that was enough to destabilize a person's mind, because if Ivan were more than just quirky, things could get really bad really fast.

Down near the bottom of the file on plasmids, from which she had identified the seven combat oriented plasmids that Ivan had added, was a link to another file, one on gene tonics. She shot a quick look over her shoulder to where Ivan was still fiddling with the lock, just to make sure she had the time. She opened the file and a huge list sprawled out on her screen, over a hundred different varieties of tonics, and none of them were apparent from physical cues. So she had no idea how many Ivan had added to his own genetic structure. Maybe if there was a sample of Ivan's blood on file she could...

Ivan gave her a holler, "Matsu-san, take that elephant gun hanging on the wall over the auxiliary station and toss it here, would you? Got a big guy out here that requires some bigger bullets."

Wordlessly she closed all of the ADAM related flies with a quick key stroke and tossed the long barreled rifle to Ivan, who quickly fired off two shots, followed by the sound of a very heavy body falling to the ground.

Ivan smoothly reloaded the gun, and chuckled, "Ah, impeccable aim my good man."

Her curiosity got the better of her and she slowly walked out to the door, to take a quick peek around the corner. Lying in a pool of deep red blood was what remained of an elephantine man, who was now lacking a head.

Ivan nudged the corpse with his boot, "Brute splicer, the product of a demented cocktail of Sports Boost and Armored Shell. Makes me really glad I only have thirty tonics compared to the several hundred these poor souls took in."

She feigned ignorance, "Tonics?"

Ivan slowly turned to her with a no nonsense look on his face, "Do you wonder why I have you at the auxiliary station? So I can keep an eye on what you are looking through, you already know what gene tonics are, and that there are several hundred varieties. More specifically, you wonder if I am still sane. Just so you know, I am well within the safety limit for a man of my height and weight. Thank you for your forwardness."

Ivan shouldered the elephant gun with a huff and stalked off into Minerva's Den to find Kusano and Homura, or so she could assume. Apparently he felt insulted that she hadn't just asked him about the topic. How would she have broached the topic though? 'Hey Ivan, how many ADAM cocktails have you put in you? I was just wondering if you were still sane.' Yeah, that was a great way to talk about things.

Rapture: Olympus Heights

Minato stepped out of the footpath between Dionysus Park and Olympus Heights. He had lingered for a few minutes just outside to rest, but the glass tube had started to unnerve him, what with all the sea life roaming through the water. Speaking of water, he had to wonder how Tsukiumi was faring right now. Ivan had said that there would be no danger down in Hephaestus, but that didn't exactly stop him from thinking through the 'what if's.'

He stepped towards the door and it slid upwards to admit him. Immediately inside, two splicers armed with pipes started to charge him. He backed off slowly, and deliberately placed one shot in each splicer's forehead. The gunfire brought out a third splicer, which received another bullet before it could react. He paused to reflect on what Ivan had said about Olympus Heights, the Russian had called it "splicer central." Seeing as he had been here for less than a minute and already three splicers had tried to kill him, Ivan's description was looking very accurate at this point. At the tail end of the thought another splicer, this one armed with a shotgun, received another bullet to the brain.

He loaded another clip into the Luger and started to move forward, thinking to himself how easy it was becoming to use a gun. When it came down to it all that it took was a light pull of the trigger, and a steady hand and anyone could kill anyone. It was a disconcerting notion, but when it came to survival there wasn't much of a choice.

A whirring noise announced the arrival of Ivan's robot, "Minato, racking up the body count I hope?"

He took a seat against the wall, "Four more, if you must know."

Ivan sounded pleased, "Very good, every one that goes down makes us getting out a little bit easier."

A small laugh escaped him, "Sure." Aware that Ivan must have had things to take care of he asked, "Any last minute advice?"

Ivan didn't answer immediately, "Minato, just how far are you willing to go to survive?"

Already, he didn't like the direction in which the conversation was going, "What are you going to suggest?"

Ivan sounded apologetic, "Look, I really can't do anything for you from here. But I do have a way for you to increase your odds, tip the scales so to speak."

He sighed, "I'm not going to like this idea, am I?"

Ivan relented, "Probably not at first, but hear me out. My first "home" in Rapture was here, before the splicers drove me out. I left something behind that you could use, a plasmid, an extra Winter Blast. You could find it and improve your odds a bit, if you feel like it."

He was appalled, "You want me to become a splicer myself?"

Ivan shot back, "Hey, one plasmid isn't going to turn you into a splicer. Those poor souls injected dozens of plasmids and hundreds of gene tonics that have become so mixed that the effects are moot. I would never tell you to do that."

He countered, "But you are saying that the only way I'm going to live is by using that plasmid."

Ivan sighed, "You're putting words in my mouth Minato, I only said that it would help. Not that it would be impossible for you to survive without it."

He shook his head, starting to realize that it was futile to argue with Ivan, especially when it came to Rapture, "Look, it's still a no."

The robot shrugged, "Suit yourself, it's on the way your going anyway, so it's always there if you change your mind."

He was surprised, "That's it? You aren't going to try and change my mind for me?"

Ivan replied, "Of course not. Like I said, it's your choice. You seem to be a competent gunslinger, so I'm not especially worried about you anymore." Ivan added just before the robot faded from earshot, "Besides, once you get here the whole gang'll be assembled. Then we can figure out what's exactly going on down here."

He muttered to himself, "How optimistic of you."

Then he picked himself up, stretched, and cocked his Luger. Ready for whatever Rapture had to throw at him.

Tokyo: Maison Izumo: front gate

Jango took his eyes off of the simple wooden construction that was number one's place of ownership. It was a humble abode, especially in comparison to the Mikogami estate, but it would do just fine if given the opportunity. Provided of course that Miya would be willing to allow them to stay.

He turned back to the group behind him, speaking directly to Mutsu, "Alright, wait here and try to remain inconspicuous. I'm going to go have a talk with Miya."

Mutsu smirked, "I think the inconspicuous part is already done for."

He screwed his face up in confusion, "What are you getting at?"

Mutsu pointed to the other side of the street with his thumb, "If you havn't noticed, most people in this city find our kind exceptionally beautiful. There is already a crowd of men gathered on the sidewalk over there, leering at the women."

He followed Mutsu's finger, and sure enough a group of ten or so men was standing stock still on the other side of the road, utterly transfixed. Luckily however, they were standing in back of an exceptionally large puddle. By giving a passing car a gentle, mental push he was able to shower the group of men with water, that broke up the crowd and got them moving again.

Mutsu commented, "It seems you still have not lost your sense of humor."

He shook his head while glaring after the last of the onlookers, "No, I was simply thought that a creative solution." He turned back to Maison Izumo, "But at any rate, I'll be going in now. Try and keep track of the rest, would you?"

Without waiting for an answer he walked in through the front door. The sight that greeted his eyes was rather pleasant. It was a simple interior, yet there was elegance in its simplicity. No frills or excessive decoration, just functionality.

A voice issued from within, apparently they had heard the door opening, "Hello? Is someone there?"

He followed the sound into the kitchen, "That would me, Miya."

Miya turned away from the smoking pot on the stove, "And you are?"

He sighed and answered, "Every time I hope that one of you will remember me. Anyway, I'm sekirei number zero, Jango."

A spark appeared in the back of Miya's eyes, "Oh, yes now I remember. What can I do for you?"

He paused to choose his words, "Not for me specifically, but I was wondering if you happened to have any room in your inn. I have several other sekirei waiting outside and, well, we know of nowhere else to go at the moment."

Miya remained smiling, "Of course, I only have two other tenetnts at the moment, you would be welcome here." She then added, "But you will work for your keep, understood?"

He nodded, "Perfectly." As he started to walk out a thought occurred to him, "Miya, why exactly are you running an inn in the first place?"

Miya didn't even turn around, "I left MBI after my husband died."

He had the gut feeling that was as much of an answer as he was going to get. So he changed the topic, "You mentioned that there were two other tenants here?"

Miya's attention was on her cooking, "Upstairs, Uzume and her ashkiabi are in the farthest room down the hall."

He gave a short, respectful bow even though Miya had her back to him, "Thank you for your hospitality."

He walked to the front door and waved the others inside before turning smartly on his heel to the upstairs. He wanted to meet Uzume's ashikabi, because if the brightness of Uzume's flame was any indication, then the ashikabi just might be a good human among the seemingly infinite numbers of bad ones. He paused just outside the door to listen, hearing nothing he assumed that they were either asleep or doing something else quiet, reading possibly.

He opened the door, "Uzume..." He had other words to speak but what he saw made it nigh impossible for the words to escape from his larynx, all he could manage was a hurried, "I'll come back later." Before shutting the door as fast as he could without slamming it.

A few moments passed before he heard the door open behind him, Uzume's was the one speaking, "Ah, you won't, tell Miya what you saw? Please?"

He forced the words out, "Don't fret about that." Then he changed the subject, "I see you really like your ashikabi."

Uzume nervously replied, "Well, yes."

He spoke as quickly as he could and still be coherent, "Well that's good, I'll just be going now."

As he neared the stairs leading down, Yomi rounded the corner and almost ran into him.

Yomi looked up at his face, "Jango-senpai, are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Without meaning to, his eyes glanced back towards Uzume's room, "No, nothing like that. I assure you, I'm quite fine." When Yomi walked past him and towards the room on the end he added, "That one is taken."

Yomi shrugged and walked into the room directly across from Uzume's. He breathed a sigh of relief and walked downstairs where the rest of the sekirei were walking in.

Mutsu approached him, leading Akitsu by the hand, "So, who is going to take care of her?"

He glanced around quickly and made the choice, "I'll do it. To be honest, it is partially my fault that she is like this to begin with, so I bear most of the responsibility for it. Find yourself a room, I'll be up shortly."

Mutsu nodded thankfully and walked upstairs, following closely on Taki's heels.

Miya's voice came from behind him, "I hope I did not just hear that you were going to be sharing a room with Akitsu here. Co-ed rooming is not allowed in this inn."

What with the recent events, he was near the end of his rope, so he narrowed his eyes and turned around, "Look, Miya, I am going to respect the fact that this is your inn, but there are certain things that I am going to have to do that will break your rules. Is that understood?"

Miya remained smiling, but a blue mask with what must have been a frightening expression appeared over her shoulder, "Just understand, no perverted behavior will be tolerated."

He scoffed, "Really, Miya? You have to remind me of that? Trust me Miya, that is by far the last thing on my mind."

The floating mask remained where it was, "Just make sure it stays that way."

As Miya walked away the very first thought to whisk through his mind was that Miya was being rather paranoid, then what he had seen in Uzume's room floated through his mind quickly and he decided that Miya might just have a good reason to be paranoid. Speaking of paranoia, he had the disconcerting notion that he was being watched. When he turned around however, the only person there was Akitsu. Maybe he was only kidding himself, but he actually found himself wishing that she was watching him. Such a thing would be a step in the right direction for her coming out of her self induced coma.

He held his hand out, "Come on, it's been a long day. About time to catch some sleep, yes?"

There was the slightest of movement in her eyes, and she lightly took the offered hand, still saying nothing. But it was a step in the right direction.

Rapture: Minerva's Den: exit from Hepheastus

Tsukiumi staggered out of the fiery heat and fell flat on her face out of exhaustion. Ivan hadn't been kidding when he had given his reasons for not making that her primary route, she had been literally been able to see the lave flowing beneath the catwalks she had been traversing. And she knew that she didn't handle heat well on a good day, that furnace however had her on the verge of passing out.

She forced herself to her feet and started to move away from the vent, once she had cooled off she should be fine, then she could go and find...

A deep booming voice in a language she didn't understand intruded upon her thoughts, English, "Ello poppet."

She turned around as fast as she was able and saw a huge hulk of a man casually leaning on the exterior of the vent she had just come out of. His clothing was tattered in places, but she could tell that at one point it must have looked rather nice. That did not stop a nameless fear from welling up inside her.

The giant started to walk towards her, matching her pace as she backed away, English, "Can't say I've had a proper lady since coming down here. You however, seem to fit the bill quite nicely. So if you don't mind, I'll be taking advantage of you right now."

One of the giant's huge hands closed around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides, then the giant roughly pushed her down onto her back.

The giant used his free hand and tipped the hat he was wearing, English, "Alright poppet, you just behave and all of this'll be over right quick."

As it dawned upon her what the giant was going to do, terror gave her new strength, however the giant's grip held, and her own personal nightmare began.

Minerva's Den: security control

Kazehana leaned back against the wall opposite Ivan and Matsu, fingering the bottle of Tate Merlot that she had brought with her from Siren Alley. She might have been worried about Minato, but she was quite confident that he would pull through for them. Ivan could go on all he wanted about how dangerous Rapture was, but love would eventually pull Minato through. On the topic of Minato she started to feel rather warm, some of the others might have said it was just because she was drunk, and that might have been true. But Minato was...

A horrified exclamation from Matsu interrupted her thoughts, "Ivan-san, look!"

Ivan looked over, then bolted up out of his chair and rushed over to Matsu's screen, his face mirroring the look of absolute horror that was etched in Matsu's.

Ivan grabbed a long barreled rifle off of the wall and barked at her, "Kazehana, you and me are going hunting."

She was curious as to what he had seen, but the tone he was taking wasn't all that nice, "I'm sorry?"

The Russian gestured over to where Kusano was playing, "I'd tell you out loud, but there are little ears here. Suffice to say that Tsukiumi is in a, painful and degrading situation for a woman."

Ivan's point was like a slap to the face, and she was on her feet in a heartbeat.

Olympus Heights: Apartment complex

Minato paused to take a breather right in the middle of the latest scene of carnage. Since speaking with Ivan for the last time he had gunned down twenty plus splicers, at least half of which had shot back. And as he fought, his confidence was growing. He felt that once him and his sekirei got back to the surface he would never be a burden to them ever again at this rate. Come to think of it, did bullets even hurt sekirei? That was going to have to be something he would put to the test next time Karasuba or another hostile sekirei attacked him.

He was passing underneath a functioning security camera when Ivan's voice crackled to life through the device, "Minato? You there?"

He paused to make sure that there were no splicers around before replying, "Ivan, what's going on?"

Ivan sounded very uncomfortable, "Look, I'm not sure how to say this. But ah, something happened to Tsukiumi, something bad."

He almost panicked, "She, she's not dead, is she?"

Ivan's tone dropped to one that you would hear at a funeral, "No, but I think she almost wishes she was at this point."

Now he was really scared, "What are you talking about? What happened?"

Ivan took a moment to answer, "Tsukiumi, she was, violated."

His heart skipped several beats, "Wha..."

Ivan went on, "A brute splicer ambushed her when she was still suffering from heat stroke, else I don't think this would have happened otherwise. Kazehana and me hauled her back here after killing the big brute as quickly as we could, but she won't speak to anyone right now, even your other sekirei. I think she needs you right now, Minato."

As he absorbed this information, a sensation that he had never experienced before started to fill his mind. A raw, bloodthirsty rage against every living splicer in all of Rapture. He desired nothing more than to kill every splicer he could find.

His voice came out sounding like someone that he didn't even recognize, "Ivan, is that plasmid still within reach? I suddenly have the need to tip the odds."


	6. Escalation

Tokyo: Maison Izumo

Jango slowly opened his eyes and took a moment to fully appreciate how nice it was to sleep in an actual bed, and on the quality of sleep that was given. Come to think of it, this was the first time he had ever slept in a bed. First it was the cold concrete floor of an abandoned construction site, then the hard wooden floor at Mikogami's estate. Compared to both of those, the bed was his personal piece of heaven. Warm, soft, and...wait, he was lying on his back. So why did his left arm feel like it was pressed against something?

He slowly rotated his head to the left, and his nose was practically less than an inch from Akitsu's. Now, his first instinct was to roar in shock, but long mental training had taught him to do the rational thing over the instinctual thing. What he did, was to slowly slide his arm out of Akitsu's grip, and slip out from under the blanket to stand by the door. Once up, he was able to breath a deep sigh of relief. He knew with absolute certainty that he had not invited Akitsu to share a bed, indeed he had gone out of his way to make sure the beds were as far away from each other as possible, on the opposite sides of the room in fact. The odds of her simply rolling across the floor and onto his bed were also practically nil, because she was under the blanket with him. That took conscious effort, which was a good thing on one hand, but a disturbing one as to what she had chosen to do with it.

Nevertheless, she seemed cognizant enough to make her own choices. So it wouldn't hurt to leave her where she was and go downstairs. Besides, she looked rather peaceful asleep, and it would be a shame to ruin the perfect picture.

As he shut the door behind him Miya's voice came from behind him, "Nothing perverted happened I hope."

He turned around with a sigh of exasperation to face Miya, who was still smiling, but with the mask floating over her shoulder, "Miya, like I told you last evening, nothing perverted is going to happen involving me and Akitsu, or any of the other sekirei in this building. I cannot speak for the others, so if you must insist on pestering someone about perverted behavior, go bother one of them."

His small rant seemed to have the desired effect, because the mask vanished and the smile remained, now at least appearing genuine, "Very well, breakfast will be served momentarily downstairs. Yomi-san is already setting the table."

He didn't need to ask how Miya had gotten Yomi to do what she wanted. By now it was obvious to him that Miya used that mask to terrify people into doing things for her, quite likely the only reason it didn't work on him was the fact that he literally had nothing to fear from number one. For the rest, Miya could beat them into submission with one finger, while blindfolded and hog tied.

Mutsu sat cross legged at the edge of the large table in the common room of Maison Izumo. It was a first for him to be served, but this was a tenant house, so he supposed it made sense. While on the topic of a tenant house, he had had a room all to himself, another first. He heard the door to the kitchen open and glanced in that direction, and he almost lost his stony visage to a fit of hysterics. Yomi was serving the food, while wearing the most revealing maid outfit he had ever seen.

Across the table, Jango's left eye started twitching, "Miya, why is Yomi wearing that?"

Miya didn't flinch, "What are you talking about?"

Jango's eye twitch became more pronounced, "As far as I know, Yomi would never wear that unless you ordered her to."

Yomi broke in, "Oh, no I chose to wear this."

Jango's mouth froze open for a long moment, "Ah, ok. So long as it was your choice."

Yomi walked around the table and placed a plate of food, rice and curry, in front of each of them before taking one of the two available seats next to Jango and digging in to her own dish with gusto. A long period of silence fell, broken only by the sound of silverware touching ceramics. The silence suited him just fine though, quiet usually meant peaceful. The sound of the front door opening made both his and Jango's hands drop immediately to their swords.

From the front of the inn, a man of medium build with medium length black hair walked in to the common room, "Miya-san, would it be possible for me to..." The man stopped speaking when he noticed that he was looking at a room full of sekirei, "...eh, I guess you've got some new tenants, huh?"

Jango relaxed slightly, "Miya, do you know this man?"

The demonic mask appeared over Miya's shoulder, "I do, and he's complete scum."

Jango looked back at the man with a thoughtful expression on his face, "I see, so I should kill him then?"

The man waved his hands in front of himself in a fearful fashion, "Whoa, let's just talk about this for a second."

Jango fingered open his sword, "Well, you have sixty seconds. So start talking."

The man started babbling, "I'm Seo Kaoru, and I was a good friend of Miya's husband before he died. So I can eat here whenever I need to. She just hates me cause I do it all the time!"

Jango fully sheathed his sword again, "Ah, so you're just a do nothing as opposed to malicious, very well." Jango then added with a smirk, "So, I hope that Hikari and Hibiki are keeping you in line?"

Seo looked startled, "Uh..."

Jango pointed towards the door behind Seo, "The two sekirei standing just outside the front door, they are your's, I am assuming."

Seo nodded, "Well, yeah. I'm not even going to ask how you know, but yes."

He stopped paying attention to the conversation and turned his focus back to his meal. He had some idea of how it was going to play out. Jango would talk with Seo for a while, then would grill the ashikabi for information on the rest of the sekirei in the city. Then number zero would continue his efforts to free every sekirei he could. If he was asked to help he would, but as far as he was concerned, for the moment he was out.

A small sound on the stairs drew his attention. When he looked up, Akitsu was standing just at the bottom of the stairs, silently observing the room. She seemed oblivious to his gaze, but she might just not have cared. Within a few moments Akitsu quietly walked over and stood directly behind Yomi, while giving the seated sekirei a glare that rivaled Miya's in the fear inducement department. After a second, Yomi also became aware of the glare, turned around, and at a subtle gesture from Akitsu scooted over away from Jango. Akitsu then took Yomi's place next to the zero number. He could have sworn that the corners of her mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly, but he might have just been seeing things.

Rapture: Olympus Heights

Minato fought off the almost overpowering impulse to sprint off into the warrens of Olympus Heights and kill as many splicers as he could before being brought down. In retrospect, perhaps this was what Karasuba felt almost all the time, but at the moment that couldn't have mattered less. Because he hadn't been there to do something, anything, Tsukiumi's worst nightmare had become reality. That created a ball of guilt deep inside that was worse than the anger, if only he had never decided to leave Tokyo...

Ivan's voice intruded into his thoughts, sounding a bit concerned due to his 180 degree shift in attitude on plasmids, "Ah, did I just hear you right? You want the plasmid now?"

He took a deep breath to keep himself from shouting, "Yes, I'm sure."

Ivan didn't sound entirely convinced, but relented, "Ok Minato, you got it. Take a left at the next hallway and find room two fourteen. Just give the door a good kick or two and you'll get in."

Before moving off he asked, "If it's that easy to get in, how do you know that the plasmid is still there?"

Ivan replied, "Easy, cause I kept it in a safe with a word lock. And I came up with a real ringer for the password, at least for the splicers. I'll tell you that when you get in."

The camera went dark and left him to follow the simple instructions. He walked ahead two feet to the end of the hallway. There, just around the corner, a huge splicer was punching through a door that just happened to be room two fourteen. Coupled with the recent events caused by the splicers, and this latest attempt at halting his progress was the last straw. He pulled out his Luger pistol, and charged in after the giant splicer.

Once he got inside, it took him a second to find the splicer in the dark. When he did, he walked right up behind the splicer, who was preoccupied with fumbling with the keypad on the safe in the corner, and put the barrel of his pistol right to the back of the splicer's head.

He cleared his throat with a short cough, "Hey."

The splicer turned around at his words, English, "Eh, what?"

He pulled the trigger and put a bullet right between the splicer's eyes.

The splicer roared in pain, but did not die, English, "OW! Why you piss licking, little shit!"

The big brute took a blind swing at him, but powered as he was with the twin fuels of adrenalin and anger he rolled under the log sized arm and swiftly climbed the back of the splicer. Once he reached the shoulders he steadied himself by pressing his pistol right to the back of the splicer's head, this time he fired twice. The splicer fell to the ground like a giant tree, slowly, and with a degree of majesty, before sprawling out on the floor just like any other corpse. Breathing heavily through clenched teeth he nudged the corpse's head with his foot just to make sure it was dead.

The camera crackled to life, "Nice kill, very stylish, if I may say so." Ivan slowly faded out, it was clear his heart was not in the attempt at humor, "Anyways, move the painting at the back and we'll get started."

He hesitated, and pointed to the safe that the splicer had been fumbling with, "But, the safe is right there."

Ivan let out a short laugh, more of a sarcastic one this time, "Oh, that? That's no safe, that is a cleverly disguised bomb. A parting gift for any splicer that dared try and take up residence in my old apartment. Trust me, you don't want to open it. I stuffed enough explosives in there to bring the entire district down, good thing that you decided to go for the plasmid in hindsight..."

He ignored Ivan and walked overt to the corner, and removed the painting from the wall, "Ivan, the password?"

Ivan cleared his throat and spoke, Russian, "Dasvidanya."

He started to reach for a key but stopped, "Wait, what did you say?"

Ivan sighed, "Are you deaf? I was speaking Russian." Ivan said it again, Russian, "Dasvidanya."

He started to get annoyed, "Well I'm sorry, I don't know how to spell in Russian!"

Ivan snapped back, "It spells exactly like it sounds, now chill out and punch the letters in as I tell them to you..."

Rapture: Minerva's Den

Ivan thought that he was giving a valiant effort at being patient with Minato, trying to translate across three languages to undo a simple lock. He split his attention between Minato and the security robot that he had especially assigned to lead Musubi by the scruff of her neck to the security room. He would go straight to Hell by choice if he let Musubi screw something else up.

He let out a deep breath of relief as Minato finally opened the safe, then added over the camera, "Ok, now flick the lever up and down twice."

Minato didn't even question him and did as asked. It was a good thing that he did to, otherwise he might be looking through a screen at a headless Minato. He had wired up a shotgun to the safe door as extra insurance against any splicer intrusion, if anyone had just ripped the door off they would have gotten a very nasty stomachache for their trouble.

He coached Minato through the contents, "Ok, the thing you want is the glowing red jar with the syringe. Oh yeah, and I hope you aren't afraid of needles, cause that's a big one."

There was a pause before Minato replied, "No kidding."

He started to speak, Now your going to have to..." Then his drone warned him that a certain brunette idiot was due to arrive, "Excuse me for a quick second. Be right back." Before Minato could object he shut off the live feed and set his head phones on the keyboard.

He picked up his shotgun and made a beeline for the door, allowing every erg of anger than he had been feeling, as well as all of his pent up frustration, to bubble up in a red tide. He tightened his grip on the shotgun so much he could have sworn that he heard the metal cry out in anguish.

Kagari must have noticed his shift in demeanor, "What are you going to do to Musubi-san?"

He bared his teeth in a demonic snarl and hissed the words, "Nothing more than she deserves."

A small fireball appeared in Kagari's hand, as an idle threat, "If you are going to kill her..."

He flicked a shot of Winter's Blast at Kagari's feet, "Chill he/she, I'm not going to kill her, this time. I can't say whether or not that I'll be able to restrain myself should anything like that happen again. But this time I'm only going to smack her around a bit, and I would usually never hit a woman.

Kagari still held the flame up, "Still, you shouldn't..."

He held up a hand and silenced the sekirei, "Look, keep quiet and I just might give you a hand with that little gender bender you seem to have a problem with."

At that, Kagari immediately shut up, and he walked right out to find Musubi staring into the ocean like a hypnotized person would stare at a swinging watch, looking for all the world like cotton candy and rainbows were going to start falling out of thin air. It was downright sickening. He cleared his throat to get her attention, what little of it there was, but to no avail. He tried once more, with feeling, and she still didn't look at him, but he did see the smallest flicker of movement in her eyes, like she was deliberately being obstinate. He supposed that it wasn't too far outside the realm of possibility. After all, it suited his view of the world that Musubi was being as stupid as she was on purpose, because no one could really be that idiotic, could they?

He dispensed with the polite approach and spun Musubi around by the shoulder so as to look her in the eyes while dropping his ultimatum, "Ok, look here girl. I utterly despise you right now, and were the choice up to me I would blow your head off right here and now, execution style. But seeing as you seem to be classified as the property of Minato, I'm going to give you one last chance, screw up again in any way that brings harm to anyone else, and I will personally turn your head into a canoe, am I understood?"

Musubi's face said that she didn't, but now that he was looking her square in the face he could see it in her eyes that she did, there was also a tiny glitter of fear, and a tiny sliver of anger. The anger cemented it in his mind that the idiocy was at least partially an act, but he needed a little more proof than just his gut instinct. Still, he needed a slight way to vent. He tossed his shotgun up into the air, caught it by the barrel, and swung it with both hands. The blow connected right on the side of Musubi's face, a few inches higher and it could have been lethal, and the brunette sprawled out unconscious. Somewhat satisfied he turned around and dragged her by the foot into the security room.

When he closed the door Matsu turned around, saw Musubi, stood, and started to speak, "What did you..."

He cut her off with both his words and a raised hand, "I don't want to hear it, she's alive, and lucky that she remains that way." He sat down and put the headphones back on his head, "Still alive Minato?"

Minato sounded annoyed, "Yes, but I've been sitting here for fifteen minutes with a giant needle in my hand."

He smiled lightly to himself, "Consider that a taste of what I've been dealing with for two years down here." Then he got serious, "Find a big vein in your arm, it's going to hurt a bit, and not just from the needle. Seeing as you're using Winter's Blast, it's going to feel like you've been standing in a freezer for hours on end."

He watched as Minato injected the plasmid cocktail, and promptly passed out, "Well, now I just have to wait until he wakes up." He rummaged through a nearby medical kit until he found a clean needle and took it over to Kagari, "I believe I made a bit of a promise, still interested?"

Kagari recoiled from the needle and pointed at it, "What is that for?"

He shook his head, "I think that would be obvious, I can't fix the gene making you a girl, or the other way around, unless I know what gene to fix. I need a blood sample for that."

Kagari glanced back and forth between his face and the needle, seeming to be debating with him/herself as to whether or not to trust him, Kagari rolled up a sleeve, "Go ahead."

He jabbed the needle into Kagari's arm, withdrew hardly any blood, and pulled it bck out again in less than a second, "That ought to do."

Kagari looked down at the red dot on his/her arm, "That's it?"

He nodded, "Yep, that's it. I'm searching for a gene, not running a blood bank."

Kagari asked, "How long..."

He cut the sekirei off, "Should take about fifteen minutes for me to isolate the gene I need, then five to brew up the cocktail, and about ten for it to take effect." He paused, "I am going to assume you want me to remove the feminine parts?"

Kagari glanced over at the other sekirei, then nodded vigorously.

Tokyo: Maison Izumo

Yomi set the gardening tools down in the dirt and let out a long sigh. Miya was a literal slave driver when it came to getting all of them to do work around the inn. She even had Mutsu doing things, what she did not know. Whatever number five was doing though, she could hardly imagine that it was willingly.

She moaned and looked down at her nails, which were caked with dirt, "Why does Miya have to be so mean?"

A voice came from behind her, "And just how am I being mean?"

All of the blood drained out of her face, and she resumed the gardening at a feverish pace, "I didn't say anything!"

After a few long moments she snuck a glance over her shoulder. Sure enough, the landlady was still there, with the same evil smile plastered on her face.

Miya barely moved, "If you don't like it, you can always leave."

She didn't bother to respond and turned back to her chores, almost praying that Miya wouldn't forbid her from the next meal. That seemed to be Miya's favorite punishment, the only thing that could be more cruel was to make the receiver of said punishment watch as everyone else ate. The only mitigating thing was that Jango would occasionally sneak some food to the afflicted after a while, but only if the punishment was for something relatively innocuous, like an accident.

Speaking of the resident psychic, she heard his distinctive voice behind her, addressing Miya, "Now, is it really necessary to loom over Yomi like a specter? I think you've already scared her enough for the day."

She slowed her work enough so she could pay attention to what was being said.

Miya replied in a deceptively upbeat voice, "I'm not scaring her, I just enjoy watching her do the gardening. She just does it that well."

Jango let out a long and exasperated sigh, "Fine, I don't see what you're getting out of it but that's up to you." He paused for a moment, "I'll be stepping out for a little while, our friend Seo informed me of MBI's personal hit squad and I think I'll be paying them a visit. Haihane and Benitsuba are in for a rude awakening."

She paused as a thought occurred to her, she turned around and pointed over the inn in the opposite direction, "But, the MBI tower is that way."

Jango's left eye started to twitch, but otherwise his face remained an expressionless mask, "I am aware of that, I just happen to be taking the scenic route."

Without waiting for a response, the zero number vaulted over the fence at the back and was gone into the concrete jungle.

Miya looked off after Jango for a moment, "What ever could be bothering him?" Then turned around and sidled away at last.

She stopped working again and tried to scrape some of the dirt out from under her nails, "Stupid landlady."

Taki dropped down to her knees on the other side of the garden, holding a bag of fertilizer, "I think that the feeling is mutual, that's why Jango-senpai defies her orders as much as he does."

She mumbled to herself, "He could whip her into shape pretty quick if he tried, why doesn't he?"

Taki shook her head, apparently having heard her little gripe, "You know the answer to that, Miya owns the inn. It's her right to make us work for our keep, but she does seem to enjoy abusing that right."

She remained silent and fumed internally. Like it or not, Taki was right. And it was nice to have three square meals a day, and a bed to herself.

Taki blurted out, "I think Akitsu is stalking Jango-senpai."

She hit her thumb with the trowel and stuck it in her mouth to stifle some of the pain, "What are you talking about?"

Taki shot a long glance over her shoulder to make sure no one else was within earshot, "I just got to thinking, Akitsu was standing right outside the front door, and she heard most of what Seo-san said about MBI and the Disciplinary Squad. I think she was waiting for him."

She focused on one aspect of the little story, "Why was Akitsu just standing around?"

Taki answered, "Miya couldn't think of anything for her to do after giving chores to the rest of us." Then forged ahead with her speculation, "And I just saw Jango-senpai leave out the back, like he was purposely avoiding her."

Puzzle pieces started to fall together in her head, "I guess that makes sense, and he got this weird eye twitch when I pointed out that he was going the wrong way."

Taki seemed intrigued, "Which eye started twitching?"

She responded, "His left, why?"

Taki smiled, "It's just something I noticed that he does, whenever he's angry his right eye starts to twitch."

She asked the question that begged to be asked, "And his left?"

The smile turned into a smirk, "Whenever he is embarrassed."

Annoyed, she stabbed the trowel into the ground, "So what? I'd be embarrassed to if I had Akitsu following me everywhere."

The smirk grew wider, "But you are a girl."

She snapped back, "Thanks for informing me." Then thought about it for a second, "You don't think..."

Taki finished the thought, "That she likes him? Yes I do."

She cocked an eyebrow at the other sekirei, "Ok, why?"

Taki rolled her eyes, "Besides the fact that she just seems like the clingy type, Jango-senpai is quite handsome, don't you think?"

She saw an opportunity to make a snappy remark and took it, "You sound like you like him to."

Taki shook her head, "Oh, not me. He acts too much like an older brother. Well, a slightly melodramatic older brother."

She made another snappy comment, "Funny, I could've sworn that Akitsu liked younger men."

Taki blinked a few times before responding, "Ok, that was just mean."

She smirked, "Oh come on, it's not like she's here to complain about it."

Taki just looked at her, with something like pity on her face. Then Taki's eyes flicked up and to the left. She took the subtle hint and slowly looked over her left shoulder, then proceeded to feel very scared. Akitsu was standing right there, and from the look on her face she had heard everything. Although most of it was in the eyes.

Akitsu glared at her, "I'm here, and I'm complaining about it."

Rapture: Olympus Heights

Minato opened his eyes, and immediately shoved himself up from the filthy floor. Ivan hadn't been kidding when he said it would hurt, especially the cold aspect of it. Then he tried to remove his left hand from the floor, and found that he couldn't. When he looked, his hand was covered in frost, and small layers of ice were forming on the floor around the spot where his hand touched the floor. With a bit more effort, he managed to pry his palm free from the floor.

The camera on the wall crackled to life right on cue, "Minato, you feeling alright?"

He touched his forehead, then had to pry his frozen hand off, "I feel fine, except I'm freezing things without meaning to."

There was a low chuckle from the other end, "Well, I suppose that there is a bit of a learning curve with plasmids. Essentially, everything involved with plasmids is based with your own will, so try willing the cold away."

He leered at the camera, "Will the cold away? You're crazy."

Ivan responded, "You want your left hand to stick to everything it touches?"

He sighed and stared at his frozen hand, "Point taken." Then started to concentrate.

After what seemed like ten minutes the icy aura faded away, and he could move his hand around without any impediment, "Got it."

Ivan sounded pleased, "Good, just do the opposite whenever you want to use it. As for actually throwing ice bolts at the splicers, that is going to take a bit of trial and error on your part. I find that a quick flick of the wrist does the trick for me, try that first when you run into something."

He lowered his hand and asked a question that came to mind, "So, is there a limit?"

Ivan scoffed, "Of course there is a limit, and that limit is your own physical stamina. Use that plasmid too much and you'll collapse until you recuperate. So pace yourself, alright? Train station isn't that far now, so just stay alive and I'll..." There was a metallic crash on the other end.

He spoke with alarm, "Ivan? What's happening?"

Ivan sounded rushed, "Got about fifty splicers just outside of Minerva's Den, and they seem quite intent on killing. Gonna make your job a bit easier, but do hurry all the..." The line went dead.

Without another moment wasted he kicked open the door and started to sprint for the train station. Whatever was happening, it was not good, and he needed to be there five minutes ago.


	7. To War

Tokyo: MBI Tower

Jango took a long look down from the top of the tower. It was from here that he had killed the former CEO of MBI, with not a small measure of satisfaction. Now he was back here to murder another human. This building seemed to draw more than its fair share of misfortune, from the manipulation of the other sekirei, to the several murders that he himself had committed.

He muttered to himself, while looking down to the floor that the two sekirei were on. "Haihane, Benitsubasa, prepare yourselves for a rude awakening."

Throwing caution, and himself, to the winds, he dove off of the top and used his mind to pull himself back towards the building. What brought him a modicum of amusement was that the ashikabi was standing right inside the window. In one swift movement, he crashed through the window, and kicked the askikabi in the back, directly out of the hole he had made.

He turned slowly, to both Haihane and Benitsubasa, who seemed completely dumbstruck. "Hello, having a good day so far?"

The shock wore off of Benitsubasa first, and she lunged for the hole in the glass, crying out the name of her ashikabi as if he were her lifeline, "Natsuo!"

As she was passing by, he grabbed Benitsubasa by the scruff of the neck, and simply prevented her from diving out the window after the doomed ashikabi. "Don't waste your time."

Benitsubasa flailed at him with feral fervor; "Let me go! I can still..."

A loud thud noise cut her off, which was accompanied by the sound of a melon getting squashed. He leaned out of the window, from here, all he could see was a red smear on the ground. That he had heard it up here must have meant that this "Natsuo" had landed directly on his head. He let go of the girl next to him, which soon became a mistake. Benitsubasa let loose a scream of rage and despair, and tackled him out of the window.

After a few seconds of falling he spoke. "You do realize that even if I do hit the ground, it wouldn't kill me."

Benitsubasa didn't respond, only kept trying, and failing, to punch him in the face.

He sighed, "That's enough." He grabbed Benitsubasa by the throat and mentally stopped their fall. "You're lucky I'm a psychic," and lifted them both back up to where the fall had started.

Back in the apartment, he shoved Benitsubasa towards Haihane. "Haihane, would you mind holding her still? I'd rather not injure either of you."

His slow, reasonable tone got through to Haihane at least, and she nodded slowly before grabbing both of Benitsubasa's arms.

He started to speak, "Now..."

Before he could say much of anything an ear-piercingly loud alarm cut him off.

He muttered to himself, "Great." He looked over at the two girls, and made a quick decision. "Ok, time's up, we're leaving."

Forgoing gentleness, he pinched a nerve in Benitsubasa's neck, knocking her unconscious, and threw her over his shoulder. Haihane was being more reasonable, so he tucked her under his arm and jumped right out the hole in the glass. In human words, he had just "made out like a thief in the night" in broad daylight.

Haihane asked him, while trying not to look down, "Where are we going?"

He landed on a building across the way before responding. "To visit a mutual friend of ours, Miya. And in all likelihood you are going to be getting a room at the inn with our unconscious friend here." He smirked and added, "Doesn't that sound fun?"

Number One Hundred and Four looked at him and blinked for a few seconds, before letting out a sigh of exasperation. "No, not at all."

In spite of the situation, he smiled and laughed. "I can't say I blame you. Seems like she has a very short temper."

Haihane clicked the clawed gauntlets on her hands together for a few seconds before answering; "You have no idea."

He retorted, "She tackled me out of a window."

"You killed our ashikabi." Haihane shot back.

Beaten at verbal fencing, he smiled and shook his head. "Touché. On that note, you seem to be taking it rather well." A long moment passed, he prompted, "Haihane?" He stopped moving away from the tower, dropped to street level, and set Haihane on her feet.

Haihane looked off into space for a long time before answering. "In all the time he was my ashikabi, he never looked at me once with even the slightest hint of desire." A wry smile twisted her face; "He was homosexual."

He screwed his face up in confusion. "I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? I've not heard that term before."

Haihane gave him an amused look. "Natsuo was a man that liked other men. Come to think of it, you would have been just his type."

He suddenly had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I think I get the point; you can stop explaining now."

Haihane smirked, "What? Don't like the mental..." She was cut off when he pinched the same nerve that he had exploited in Benitsubasa.

He muttered to himself, "She's almost as bad as Yomi. Is sex all these girls think about?"

With a long sigh, he hoisted Haihane up onto his other shoulder and set off for Maison Izumo at street level. It wasn't like he was in any hurry to be back, and there was a certain young woman that made him uncomfortable within his own skin. The worst part of it, he was sharing a bedroom with her. It was far from a feeling of malice, or any kind of negative feeling, he just didn't know what to do about it. Akitsu seemed to want to spend every second of every minute of downtime with him. He would admit that he found himself drawn to her for some reason, possibly because there was something especially fragile about her. But it was his duty to protect all of his kin, with extra emphasis on the word "all."

He sighed and found himself looking up at the sky. "Why can nothing ever be simple?"

Another voice broke in on his thoughts. "Something I seem to be asking myself over and over lately."

His eyes snapped towards the source of the voice, a figured cloaked in the shadow of an alley, and he responded. "Is that so? And you are trying to answer this by seeking me out for a rematch?"

Karasuba stepped out of the shadows, with a snide smirk on her face and her sword arm in a sling. "No, I learned my lesson well enough the first time we crossed swords."

He took a mental grip upon his sword, just in case Karasuba was bluffing. "Then what do you want this time?"

Karasuba took a step closer, still smiling. "I have something you might just want to hear."

Rapture: Minerva's Den

Ivan slowly looked at his screen, trying to keep a level head. This wouldn't be the first time that he had been up against severely lopsided odds, and this time he had help. Really, he had set Minerva's Den up for the exclusive purpose of being his fortress while he remained in Rapture. The fifty splicers that were moving on his holdout were probably going to be whittled down to about thirty by the time they got within striking distance. But still, thirty splicers was nothing to sneeze at.

He picked his shotgun up and checked that it was fully loaded, then shouted, "Ok, Kazehana, Kagari, you're coming with me to hold the lot of these bastards off. Matsu, I'd like you to stay here and try to get back in contact with Minato. The rest of you-"

Musubi cut him off. "I'm going to help to!"

He snapped back, "Like Hell you are. You're going to stay right here, out of the way, where you can't screw anything up."

Matsu leaned in and whispered in his ear. "She's going to try and 'help' no matter what you say. Getting angry isn't going to help."

He muttered to himself, "Yeah, I've figured that out by now. But it makes me feel better to vent a little." He looked up at the brunette bitch. "Fine, but remember what I told you about what will happen if you fuck us over again."

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, when he looked, it was Kazehana, she spoke; "Ivan-kun, your hand is on fire."

He lifted his left hand to confirm what she was saying, then he replied. "That's just my Incinerate plasmid acting up, sometimes happens when I'm pissed off to high Heaven." He started to jog towards the door. "No more discussion, we have a miniature war on our hands."

He had constructed a small barricade in the connection tunnel from the security station to the rest of Minerva's den. That would be the best place to hold off the splicers. Hopefully the oil slick he had spread over the killing ground would still be there. If he got lucky, he could catch the majority of the splicers in the blaze when he set it off. Otherwise it would be up to his shooting skills, and whatever powers Kazehana and Kagari could bring to bear, to stop the figurative bleeding. He didn't dare put much stock in Musubi doing much that would be beneficial to group survival. Besides, all he had seen Musubi do so far was punch things, and he didn't dare give her a gun.

They arrived at the barricade and he started barking orders, as politely as he could. "Kazehana-chan, I'd like you to take cover on the right side, then you can do whatever you do. Kagari-san, take the left. I'll set up in the center." He then turned to Musubi. "As for you, stay here and don't move until I tell you to." He leaned in and added. "And if you don't, I will have absolutely no problem shooting you in the ass."

Without bothering to make sure she understood, he dropped down behind the barricade and waited. From long experience, he knew the sound of the splicers approaching, and none of them but the Houdini variety were quiet. Speaking of which, that little red haze in the air behind Kazehana was the dead giveaway. He pulled out his pistol and put two bullets into the center of the cloud. The resulting screaming from the splicer caused Kazehana to turn around. What followed was both interesting and comforting. Kazehana just raised her hand, pointed it in the general direction of the Houdini splicer, uttered a few words, and the splicer flew into the wall hard enough to dent the metal. Which, to him, was damn impressive.

Kazehana looked over at him, gave him a wink, and spoke. "Thanks for the heads up, Ivan-kun."

In spite of the situation, he found himself shaking his head in amazement. Did Kazehana always have to sound like that? Seriously, he could honestly picture, in his minds eye, her voice doing the voice-over in some kind of erotic movie. That, or some kind of seductive demoness or vampire queen. This line of thinking sounded really bad, even to himself in the privacy of his own head. He peeked over the barricade and ducked back down just as quickly. The splicers had appeared at the far end of the passage.

He crawled over to Kagari so he could whisper without alerting the approaching enemy. "Ok, there's a wet patch of floor about twenty feet past this here barricade. On the count of ten, you and I are both going to throw a fireball onto that wet patch, ok?"

Kagari glanced over the barricade and responded, with more of a statement than a question, "Oil."

He shook his head. "Close, gasoline. Makes a bigger boom when ignited. Be ready."

He pulled one of the barrels in the barricade to the side, just enough so he could see the approaching hoard. He was waiting for the first splicer to reach the close side of the fire-trap, then the ignition would catch as many as possible in the blaze.

He held up his fingers and started to put them down one by one, then he shouted, "NOW!"

At his word, both he and Kagari stood and threw fire at the gas slick. In being honest with himself, his fireball fell short by about a foot. Kagari's however, hit right on target.

He put a bullet in the head of one of the burning splicers, "Fry you bastards!"

Kagari threw another fireball before ducking down and looking over at him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

He responded while feeding heavy rounds into his revolver. "You think? These freaks have been hunting me for two years. Hell to the yes, I'm enjoying this. If I could line all of the splicers up, and I had one tank shell to shoot, I would blow all of them away without a second of hesitation." He glanced over the barricade at the dying fire. "Speaking of blowing things away..." He wheeled about to Kazehana; "Feel free to do some "blowing away" of your own."

A few more bullets and some large gusts of wind from Kazehana took care of the remaining splicers armed with guns. He started to relax and began to waltz back towards the security station.

Musubi stood bodily in his way; "Can I help now?"

He smirked and responded. "Oh, sure. Knock yourself out." Secretly, he was seriously hoping that she really would knock herself out. He added; "Just stay out of Kazehana's way."

Musubi hurried by, and he felt reasonably safe letting her do so. From what he had seen there was really nothing present that could really go badly if Musubi got involved. So it should be just fine for him to go back to the security room and try to get back in touch with Minato.

He laughed to himself. "Poor kid is probably worried sick. I'll bet he'll be happy to find out..." A loud, deep, metallic moan caused any further words to catch in his throat, and all the blood in his body to freeze.

He raced back to the barricade. In the back, far behind the remaining splicers but approaching with the inevitability of a typhoon, was one of the titans of Rapture, a Big Daddy. From the look of it, at a distance, it seemed to be a Rosie model. The Big Daddy would go completely berserk if so much as scratched by anyone, and Musubi was heading straight for it.

He roared into the distance. "Musubi, get away from that thing! Don't even think about..." Too late, Musubi punched the Rosie right in the chest, and with absolutely no effect.

The light coming from the helmet of the Rosie turned red, the kind of red that one would see in their nightmares. The Big Daddy bellowed with the rage of a despairing father, which it was, but that made it no less terrifying. With consummate ease, the Rosie batted Musubi aside and started shooting its main gun at the brunette. Out of camaraderie, Kagari started attacking the Rosie as well. Before he could yell out a warning, the Rosie turned on Kagari, and put three, white-hot, foot-long, steel-piercing rivets into Kagari's left shoulder.

He snarled in defiance; "Screw this," and started to run back towards the security center.

Kazehana kept her head low as she made her way across the backside of the barricade over to Kagari. To her horror, there were three spikes sticking through his body, practically pinning him to the floor. There was little blood however, and the sizzling noise obviously meant that the metal was burning Kagari's flesh.

A loud, rhythmic thud drew her attention. Ivan was dragging a large piece of machinery from the direction of the security center. It looked something like a large tube, with lots of little pipes running all over it. There was also a significant section that was made entirely of glass, with crackling bits of electricity arcing around inside. Ivan, with considerable difficulty, hoisted the device onto his shoulder.

The Russian shouted; "Hey, Big Daddy!"

The metal creature at the far end of the tunnel was distracted momentarily from Musubi. Turning towards Ivan, it bellowed again.

Ivan pulled the trigger on the large device, and roared. "I'MMA FIRIN' MAH LAZER!"

A huge, crackling beam of light shot out of the device and hit the "Big Daddy." When the light cleared, Ivan was cradling the device and sitting against the wall, seven feet back from where he had pulled the trigger. The Big Daddy was simply gone. There was not even a scrap of metal left where the hulking creature had been standing. Ivan set the heavy weapon on the ground as gently as he was able and walked over to her and Kagari. Along the way, the Russian pulled a white bundle out from under his coat.

Ivan knelt next to Kagari and put a small bottle from the bundle next to Kagari's lips. "Here, drink this. It'll dull the pain for a bit while I work. Unless of course you want me to leave the spikes in, as a masochistic badge of honor."

Kagari coughed, "No, by all means, remove them."

Ivan smirked, "I thought you would see things my way." The Russian then reached over and tore Kagari's vest away, to reveal a very masculine torso. Ivan smiled, "Guess you're really a man now, complete with battle scars."

Kagari snarled, "Ok, enough with the jokes. Just fix the damn holes."

Ivan nodded in agreement, "Works for me." Then he turned to her. "Kazehana-chan, I'm going to need you to give me a hand with this one." Ivan handed her a small syringe. "When I yank a spike out I need you to spray some of that into the wound. Then I can wrap some bandages around and stop the bleeding. Got it?"

She nodded silently and helped where she was needed to patch up Kagari. She also couldn't help but look over her shoulder every couple of seconds, expecting Musubi to pop out of the ether at any given moment. Knowing how peeved Ivan was with Musubi already, there were going to be some strong words thrown about, and maybe a few fists or bullets.

Tokyo: Maison Izumo

Jango remained silent when Karasuba finished with the revelation she had promised. According to her, MBI was taking serious offense to his actions in regards to his kin, and their personnel. Plans were being made to launch a full scale attack right where he was sitting. Apparently, they still had ways of tracking every other sekirei but him.

He went over what he had heard in his head slowly, then asked. "So, how much time do we have until this is going to happen?"

Karasuba tended to her blade with a free hand. "If I had to guess, I would say the next coming evening. If you wanted a specific time, I can't help you with that."

From the tone she had used, he could tell that the conversation with Karasuba was over. He had more questions that he wanted to ask, but he doubted that Karasuba had the answers. Things like how many soldiers there would be, what kind of hardware they would be bringing; in essence he wanted the standard battlefield rundown.

He rose, and nodded politely. "Thank you for the warning."

Karasuba flippantly responded. "Yes, yes, now get out of my hair."

He smirked to himself. Karasuba was never going to change, whether bound to a human or not. The bruise to her pride from her defeat at his hands might be enough to keep her from attacking other sekirei. But he seriously doubted that it would be long before she left the inn to find some violence, any kind of violence. He turned on the ball of his heel and reached for the door. When his hand touched the knob there was the slightest of movements on the other side. He frowned, someone had been eavesdropping on a sensitive topic.

Being careful not to break the door, he kicked it open and started to speak; "Who..." He stopped abruptly when he recognized the face of the woman that had both hands cupped over her nose, with a small trickle of blood oozing through.

Alarm tinged his voice; "Akitsu!" Without thinking, he seized a small section of his left sleeve and clamped that section over her nose to staunch the bleeding.

He didn't shy away, but he did think to himself that he logically should not have reacted like that. Had it been anyone else at the door, he still would have helped whoever had been hit. But he would at least have said something about not eavesdropping and getting hit on the nose being their just desserts. With Akitsu, not a single thought had gone through his mind before he acted. A full thirty seconds passed before the bleeding stopped.

He let go slowly, and was rewarded by no more blood flow. He tried to play the moment off casually. "Well, that ought to do it. Next time, if you have something you need to speak with me about, knock first. I need to get going at the moment."

Before he had gone five steps, Akitsu stopped him in his tracks with an astute assumption. "You're planning to try taking them all on by yourself, aren't you?"

He slowly spun on his heel, and replied; "It is my duty."

Akitsu quickly countered, with a note of accusation in her voice. "It is your duty to commit suicide?"

He evaded the direct answer. "If that suicide assures the continued safety of the rest of you, then yes."

Akitsu countered again. "And how will your death help us in the long term? How could you protect us from a different threat farther down the line?"

To this question, he did not have a ready answer. Not that he had ever thought that this conversation would occur in the first place. So he simply remained silent.

A long moment passed before Akitsu asserted. "I'm going with you."

His reaction was instantaneous; "No, you are not."

A not so subtle tone of pleading entered Akitsu's voice, "Why?"

He was silent for a long time. Akitsu's question was not one that he had an answer for, nor one that he ever thought that he would need to answer.

The pleading became more pronounced in Akitsu's words, "And?"

He spoke slowly, as the words came to him. "Because if you get hurt, I suffer." He continued before Akitsu could cut him off. "I do not speak in metaphorical terms. I literally suffer for every injury inflicted upon each and every one of you. That event just now, when you were smacked on the nose. I felt it as much as, if not more than you did. I have learned to block out the pain from regular injuries, a stubbed toe for instance, but if one of you were shot, let alone a large group of you, I don't think my mind could handle that much pain." He went on; "And, if it were you specifically that were hurt, I'm not sure the pain would be wholly physical."

His admission seemed to have two immediate effects. One, in spite of the situation, a part of Akitsu seemed happy at his admission of something between them. Two, Akitsu seemed crestfallen by his logic.

He set a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. I have no intention of getting myself killed. I'm going to give them one chance to turn back, and if they don't, I crush the life out of every single one that bears a weapon."

Rapture: Minerva's Den

Minato raced around the corners in the metal warren as fast as he could. He didn't really know where he was going, so he was running on instinct. Something had to have been wrong for Ivan to get cut off like that, and knowing Rapture as he knew it now it had to be the splicers.

He was chanting to himself; "... run faster, gotta run faster..."

As was his luck up to this point, he tripped on a fallen metal grate and sprawled out flat across the floor. Not even feeling the pain from the numerous scrapes he reflexively shoved himself up. As he rose however, something on the wall caught his eyes. He wanted to run without looking, but he forced himself to look. Once he looked, he was glad that he did. What had caught his eye was an area map. He had passed the tunnel to the security center three doors ago. When he arrived at his intermediate destination, something that he hadn't noticed the first time caught his notice. It was a smell that floated out of the tunnel. A smell that, in some ways, reminded him of a badly burned piece of meat. The smell gave him a bad feeling, but whatever it was, was in the direction that he needed to go.

As he ran, a sound started to register in his ears, just on the fringe of his hearing. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but from this distance he thought that he should recognize it. It was a voice, he could tell that much, and an angry voice at that. He rounded a corner, and the sight that met his eyes was less than comforting. He saw Musubi, which was nice, but there was a man in a tattered brown coat pinning Musubi to the wall of the tunnel, with the business end of a shotgun pressed to Musubi's forehead. He froze right where he was, aware that any sudden sounds might spook the man with the gun and end Musubi's life.

Whatever words the man was speaking were incoherent, and English. "I don't even know where to start with you. You get Minato and Tsukiumi stuck in the outskirts of the city by breaking something I worked for weeks on. You got one of your patchwork family raped. You piss off a Big Daddy so Kagari gets three rivets in his torso. And to top it all off, you almost drowned everyone else before you even got to Rapture. Am I missing anything? Because I seriously hope that I..."

He had to do something. Whoever had a gun to Musubi's head sure seemed angry enough to use it without provocation. But that of course brought up the question of how he was going to get the shotgun away from Musubi's face. He was a good shot, but from this far away he wasn't confident that he could score a perfect headshot. Anything less would alert the man with the gun and Musubi would most likely die. He needed to get the man to freeze in place... freeze. He immediately glanced down at his left hand. Seemingly at the thought "freeze" the frost coating from before had returned, and promptly stuck his hand to the floor.

He pried his hand away and muttered to himself. "What did Ivan say? Just think about it with a flick of the wrist?"

He tried to visualize it in his mind, the image of the shotgun toting villain frozen solid where he stood. When he was sure he had a firm enough grasp on the idea he flung his palm open and practically prayed. What looked like a miniature cloud of snowflakes flew from his hand, but along the way it coalesced into a solid ball of ice. That flying ball struck the shotgun wielder square in the back of the head. The gunman dropped to the ground, clutching the back of his head, moaning with a frightening mixture of rage and pain. He seized the opportunity and charged, pulling out his pistol as he ran. He pulled the trigger, and his gun spat out one bullet before clicking on empty. The one bullet rewarded him with a spurt of blood that erupted from the knee of the gunman.

The man on the ground roared. "Dammit Minato, stop shooting me!"

In close quarters he recognized the voice as if he had been listening to it from birth, "Ivan?"

The Russian used his shotgun like a crutch to stand, and angrily replied; "Yeah, you think?"

His mind was a mess. "But, why were you pointing a gun at Musubi-chan?"

Ivan used his free hand to point an accusatory finger in Musubi's face. "This bitch is the root of every major problem that has occurred since you all got down here." Ivan pounded the butt of his shotgun on the ground for emphasis. "You getting stuck out in Olympus Heights, her fault. Tsukiumi being forced to trek through Hephaestus, and the resulting trauma, her fault. More recently she attacked a Big Daddy and as a result, Kagari got three metal spikes stuck in his chest. Again, her fault."

He started to object, "But..."

Ivan interrupted him. "And, if what Matsu told me is accurate, she almost capsized the boat you were all floating along on before you even got here. She would have killed everyone." Ivan's eyes were ablaze with fury. "She's a walking death hex!"

He finished his objection. "But you can't just shoot her!"

Ivan snorted; "Can't I?"

Ivan started to bring the shotgun up under Musubi's chin, and at the same time, out of reflex, he put the barrel of his pistol against Ivan's skull.

Ivan stopped lifting his shotgun and turned so the gun barrel was aimed right between his eyes. "Are you really going to shoot me Minato?"

His hand started to shake. "I don't want to, so don't shoot Musubi-chan."

Ivan glared at him, locking eyes for a very long moment. For a second, he thought that Ivan was going to pull the trigger regardless of the death threat he had unwillingly dropped. Killing splicers was one thing, they were all deranged and no longer human. Ivan might have been crazy, but he had actually been trying to help him all along.

Ivan lowered the shotgun and grabbed at his wounded leg. "Fine, she gets one more chance. But I swear on my future grave, if she endangers anyone else I WILL blow her head off regardless of whatever objection you might have."

The Russian staggered off towards the security center, muttering frustrated obscenities under his breath.

When Ivan vanished from view, Musubi flung herself on him. "Minato-kun!"

A burst of anger escaped him and he violently twisted himself out of Musubi's grip. "You were almost executed just now! Do you even comprehend that?"

Musubi just looked at him, with an utterly stupid look on her face. How had he never seen this? Looking back, had he never just tried to speak with her? Had he just been enamored by her actions the entire time? Her looks? Then it hit him, she was the first girl to ever kiss him. He had been suffering from the curse of the first, ergo, he had gotten stuck on Musubi and seeing her as perfect. Disgusted with himself, and his shortsightedness, he shouldered his way past Musubi. The flame of his dedication smothered by a single biting moment of clarity.

Rapture: Security Center

Ivan staggered over to his chair and fell back into it, favoring his holey leg. Logically speaking he wasn't going to hold it against Minato for putting a bullet through him. The wound would heal quickly enough that it wouldn't affect their escape plan for the following day. Well, when he shared that plan with the others anyway.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Ivan-kun, you're bleeding."

He turned his head so he could look up. Kazehana's face was still flushed from the liquor but she managed to look concerned. Among Minato's harem she seemed the most independent, to him anyway. He might have been wrong, but in the setting they were in she seemed to do her own thing more often than Matsu, or Kusano, or especially Tsukiumi. Kagari didn't count due to him being of the same sex as Minato.

He smirked while responding. "Oh stop it, you're too kind. I'll heal before we need to get out of here."

Kazehana looked down at the small hole in his knee. "How did you get shot?"

He replied honestly. "I was holding a gun to Musubi's head and was about to pull the trigger. Minato arrived on the scene and took exception to that. I don't blame him for it."

Kazehana's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "You mean Minato is here?"

He nodded, "Yes he is, I'd guide him over to Tsukiumi as soon as possible if I were in your shoes."

Right on cue Minato walked into the security center, with Musubi tagging along like a puppy unable to comprehend why it had been kicked to the curb. The instant that one of the sekirei caught sight of Minato, they all, with exception of of Tsukiumi for obvious reasons, moved en mass toward their ashikabi. It was strangely gratifying to see Musubi being excluded from the touching family reunion.

He muttered to himself; "Lucky bastard." He broke in with a shout. "As poignant as this moment is, I think there is someone specific you need to talk to."

His piece spoken, he turned back to his monitor and attempted to ignore the pain in his knee until it healed. About five minutes later, he heard a familiar voice gasp in a mixture of astonishment and joy, then immediately start crying hard enough to fracture the Great Wall of China. It certainly broke his heart to hear it.

Tokyo:

Jango sat atop Maison Izumo and watched the sun slowly sink towards the horizon, behind the concrete monoliths of the Tokyo skyline. Despite his confident words to every other sekirei that had asked, he wasn't sure if he was going to come back alive. Even if he did succeed, there was no degree of certainty that MBI wouldn't try again at a later date. Not for the first time he cursed his existence and whomever had made him what he was. But still, duty was duty nd he had more reason than usual to make sure he succeeded, regardless of whether he was alive or dead at the conclusion.

He shot a long, wan look down towards the lights in the inn, all laughing together, oblivious to what doom could fall upon them on the morrow, and sighed. "Farewell, for we might never meet again."

Then he steeled himself, and leaped off into the night. The MBI tower stretching towards the sky off in the distance like a bloody blade.

Rapture: Minerva's Den

Minato slowly opened his eyes, looked down, and noticed that all of his sekirei had clustered around him during the "night." Surprisingly, for the first time, he didn't feel scared to high heaven. Really though, compared to fighting for his life against mutated people that wanted to kill him, waking up surrounded by women, and one man, was a picnic. He felt his eyes drawn to a glow in the darkness, to Ivan's chair where the Russian was sitting, head in hand, watching him with an air of curiosity.

Ivan spoke softly, with the obvious intention of leaving the others asleep. "You know, I'm really quite amazed by you Minato. Any other man that I knew before I came down here would be a drooling lecher in your position, yet you havn't even spent a night in the same bed with any of them."

He started to protest. "Then what do you call..."

Ivan cut him off. "Not simply sleeping in the same bed. I mean, let the little soldiers march."

The euphemism was not lost on him, and his mouth flipped shut with an audible click. To be honest with himself he was amazed as well that one of them hadn't pushed him into it. Matsu or Kazehana in particular.

He sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, well, I suppose that the ah, opportunity never presented itself."

Ivan smirked, "If you don't mind me saying, you seem a bit young to start thinking of that particular activity with your little harem. Must be Matsu's perverted influence."

Taking it as the light joke it was, he chuckled lightly in response, "Maybe." He did a double take as he realized that Ivan hadn't moved from where he had been when he nodded off. "Have you even slept?"

Ivan shook his head slowly. "No, I'm too hyped up on adrenaline at the possibility of escape to even think about sleeping. Don't worry about me though, I'll be as sharp as ever when we need to make a break for it."

He gave Ivan an incredulous look. "Then, what exactly have you been doing while I've been sleeping?"

The Russian flashed him a smartass smile. "I've been staring luridly at Kazehana, thinking of all the dirty things I could get her to do when she's drunk." A short, suppressed bought of mirth escaped from Ivan. "In all seriousness though, I was reading through some of the archived issues of the Rapture Tribune."

He took an educated guess. "You were reading copies of old newspapers?"

Ivan nodded, "Exactly, that's how I learned most of what I know about Rapture. Stanley Poole was one hell of a reporter in his day. Pity how he died, all alone in that hospital bed."

He felt a spark go off inside his head. "You met Stanley Poole and he told you about Rapture. That's how you ended up down here in the first place!"

Ivan smiled at him, although there seemed to be a bit of sadness in it. "I knew you were a bright one, and you are exactly right. I read to the guy when I was thirteen for community service. He was pushing, I think, one hundred and three when he died."

He took a moment to ponder the idea of living past a hundred years. "Wow, you think he had taken any plasmids himself?"

Ivan nodded, "I know that he had. I was practically the only friend he had in his last days. Imagine my shock when he left me everything he owned. Among the contents of his personal notes was the location of Rapture, and the only way to safely get in, or out. That's where we'll be going as soon as the rest of you wake up."

Aware that he wasn't exactly going to get back to sleep, he asked the question that was practically begging to be asked. "So, where exactly is this exit? How far away is it?"

Ivan tapped a few keys and a diagram of, what he assumed was Rapture, appeared on the screen. The Russian pointed to the screen; "We are currently here in Minerva's Den. The exit is over on the far side of the Medical Pavilion, which we can bypass through a maintenance tunnel. I'll be sending every combat drone that I have left to clear the way ahead of us when we set out, but the splicers will still probably catch onto us."

He finished the thought. "So that's why you needed us."

Ivan nodded, "It would have been suicide to go alone. Even you by yourself would have made the odds of success go up by an order of magnitude. With the rest of your sekirei we should have no trouble at all. Provided of course that we don't run across another Big Daddy."

He grimaced in distaste. Matsu had filled him in on what exactly a Big Daddy was after he had heard the term from Ivan. An especially mutated and surgically altered father that slavishly looked after a little girl that had also been altered into an ADAM factory. It would be better to die than to suffer that fate.

He took a deep breath to get the image out of his head. "When are we going?"

Ivan hit a button on his screen and the monitor went dark. "If you wanted to wake up your harem we could leave right now." The Russian shrugged; "No time like the present, right?"

He smiled and shook his head. "You know, I said that right before the ship sank. It's not exactly a phrase that has carried much luck for me as of late."

Ivan smirked, "You still didn't answer the question. To wake, or not to wake?"

He glanced at the sleeping faces of the rest of his sekirei. "This city has been nothing but a nightmare for everyone here. The sooner we leave the better."

Tokyo: MBI tower

Jango stood square in the middle of the only street to lead North. The last several minutes of his time had been spent watching the huge assault force assemble before him. They could all see him where he stood beneath a street light and he knew it, yet they still hadn't opened fire on him. He had to assume that the commanding officers had issued strict orders to not fire unless fired upon. That worked for him because every second that MBI's forces remained in the square meant another second that they weren't advancing upon his kin.

He muttered to himself, more of a self-reassuring gesture than anything else. "I can wait here for weeks. How long do you have?"

A single man detached himself from the formations and started to walk slowly over to him in sharp, even strides. From the bright patch on the shoulder of the uniform he had to assume that it was the commanding officer.

The officer stopped a respectful distance away and removed his hat. "Are you here to surrender, or to fight?"

He set a hand upon the hilt his sword. "Try to go past me and we'll see."

A sad expression crossed the officer's face. "I rather not have any bloodshed."

He nodded in response; "It would seem that we share that, you and I. In that case, turn your men around and go home before I have to hurt you."

The officer shook his head, "I'm sorry, but I have my orders. Any sekirei that resists must be subdued and pacified."

He drew his blade; "Then I am sorry that it comes to this, but none of you will be leaving this square alive."

The officer waved his troops forward and dropped flat to the ground. "Open fire!"

He held up a hand and the air in front of him started to cloud up with bullets, mixed in with some variety of dart. Clearly they intended to attempt to take most of the sekirei alive. He swatted aside a tank shell into the dirt next to the prone officer, blowing the man into so many bloody fragments. He was momentarily saddened by the death, as he had almost been a kindred spirit despite being on the opposite side. Then he shoved his feelings aside and focused his entire being on the fight at hand.

Rapture: Welcome Center

Ivan paused for a second to give his knees a break. He had known that it would be a painful trip to escape from the city in the first place, but reality always seemed to have a way of taking his assumptions of negative circumstances and multiplying them by an order of magnitude. When it came to positive things however, he was usually completely wrong. In retrospect, it might have been more plausible for the entire crew to shoot their way out of the city. But he had picked this route to minimize the risks, not because it was comfortable.

He muttered to himself, complaining over his own logic process. "Doesn't mean I can't whine about it."

He forced himself to get moving again, placating himself with the fact that three of the women behind him were crawling along on bare knees.

He called back to the group behind him, then immediately winced at the echo his words created. "Everyone doing alright?"

There was a whispered chorus of affirmations from the group. The one from Minato seemed a bit strained however. It then hit him that Minato was crawling along behind Tsukiumi and her short skirt. He was forced to stifle a laugh at the thought. Even after shooting his way through dozens of splicers just to survive Minato was still uncomfortable with staring up a woman's skirt. Sure if it was a random passerby that would be awkward, but Tsukiumi was his wife, or rather, one of them.

He held up his hand, and whispered. "Hold up, we're here. Give me a second to cut the grate."

He rolled up his sleeve to prevent it from igniting and flicked on his Incinerate plasmid. Trying to keep the glow to a minimum, he grabbed the metal bars and turned up the heat. Each bar melted away in moments. He stuck his head out of the opening and gazed around, taking in the Welcome Center as he had left it two years ago. Nothing had changed, and indeed nothing should have. The vast, rubble-filled interior was still littered with random debris. Loose playing cards, empty bottles, scattered luggage, everything that had been here when he entered the city. Before Rapture had descended upon him like an avenging angel he had actually been planning on restoring the Welcome Center next. After all, he had fixed up every area of the city that was needed for self-sufficiency, the fishery, the botanical farms, the furnace, and even the Adonis luxury resort for the rich folk to have something to do. Rapture had been on the verge of true life once again. Yet in the end it was all for naught. It was hard to walk away from his dream, but fate had conspired to make it impossible to fulfill.

He was unable to suppress a deep sigh, one filled with regret. "Alone I sail upon the sea of broken dreams."

Kagari, the one behind him in the line, nudged him. "What was that?"

He crawled out and beckoned to the sekirei. "Never mind, it's all clear so far as I can see."

One by one he helped the rest of the group out of the vent, throwing a glance over his shoulder every now and then at the door to the elevator. There was no question as to whether it worked or not, it had been working without maintenance for sixty something years when he arrived. Also, immediately after he arrived he had put in a good amount of time making sure it would stay working.

He gestured to the elevator door, a slight note of melancholy in his voice. "There it is, we're out of here." He added in English; "Oh joy."

As the rest of the crew rushed towards the doors he lagged behind a bit, picturing to himself what he could have done with the place if he had had the time. In the words of a former citizen of Rapture, it could have been something magical. A modern twist on the sixty's, slow jazz music playing over the speakers in the places of relaxation. Siren Alley, the embarrassing itch of the city, could have become something respectable again. The same for Fort Frolic, well, as respectable as a place with numerous brothels could be. Rapture had represented the peak of human innovation, and still did in many places. It was nothing short of a tragedy of mankind that it slowly rot away in the depths of the ocean. But that was neither here nor there, he had to leave, and that was the end of it.

Minato called to him from the elevator. "Ivan, what are you waiting for?"

He started to reply, but stopped as a small tremor shook the floor and put him flat out on his rear end. At the same time, inside the elevator, tentacles of a disturbingly familiar hue snaked down above his friends, splayed wide like the jaws of a trap.

He roared; "Down!"

Everyone in the elevator instantly did as he said, with the predictable exception of Musubi. As such, when the tentacles snapped shut only the brunette was caught. The rest promptly fled the interior of the elevator.

Half of the way across the room, possibly out of a sense of responsibility, Minato skidded to a halt; "Musubi-san..."

He got to his feet and snagged Minato by the arm. "Hold it, do you want to get caught as well?"

Minato reflexively threw him a look, but then nodded and held his ground. Out of nowhere the sound of a single set of applause rang out, from behind them. He turned, and walking out from the shadows was a lone figure dressed in an immaculate brown suit and tie. The man had a clipped, perfect mustache, flawless complexion, and an eerily perfect gait. The kind of structure that used to be used to advertise ADAM cocktails.

The man started to speak, lightly accented and highly formal, English. "Well done, well done. I must admit I'm surprised you caught on to that when you did. The last several hundred people to enter were so focused on leaving that they let their guard down at the last minute."

He shot back; "Yeah? Well give us all medals." Then he lifted his elephant rifle. "And who are you?"

The man chuckled, English; "Oh I'm sure you've read a few articles of the Rapture Tribune about me, especially my later work with Doctor Sophia Lamb."

The light-bulb flicked on inside his head, and his eyes went as wide as saucers, English. "You, you're Gilbert Alexander! But, the reports I read..."

Gil finished the thought, English. "...That I had been fed enough ADAM to splice up the entire continent of Europe? Indeed I was, and it drove me quite mad. As the madness descended I even left a string of clues to help someone kill me. Subject Delta found those clues and found me, but could not bring himself to kill me. In his act of mercy, I found a new purpose." Gil threw his arms wide for emphasis, English. "Protecting all of mankind from the plague that is ADAM! So, you will understand if I cannot allow you to leave. Now do us both a favor and drop your weapons."

He snarled, English, "Not in a million years."

Gil rolled his eyes and sighed, English. "I see you want to do this the hard way, very well." The floor split open about two feet behind Gil, the steam that issued from the crack a clear indication that it went all the way down into Hepheastus, and the tentacles holding Musubi twined up out, English. "Either you surrender..." Gil gestured in Musubi's direction, English; "Or I pull your friend limb from limb."

Minato reacted to the gesture; "What does he want with Musubi-san?"

He took a moment to think, then responded honestly. "He wants us to surrender so he can conscript us into his splicer family. If we don't, he kills Musubi."

Minato's eyes flared, but to his credit he didn't automatically start to surrender. "What do we do?"

He glanced over at Gil, who was waiting with a smug, self-assured look on his face. "I have a plan. The instant I shoot, I want all of you to scatter."

Gil called out, English; "Well? Do you have an answer yet?"

He made a mental lock on his new target, English. "Oh, I have an answer for you all right."

He whipped up his elephant rifle and emptied both chambers. The first bullet hit Musubi square in the chest, right where her heart should have been, and vaporized it. Both arms flew off in different directions, spraying blood all over the place. A fraction of a second later the second bullet hit Musubi's suspended head in between the eyes, taking the top half away and leaving Musubi's mouth frozen open in a picture of astonishment.

He started to race for cover to avoid the retaliatory tentacle lash, shouting at Gil, English. "Hostages only work when the other people care if they live!"

Tokyo: MBI square

Jango spun on his heel and pushed away another electrically-charged net. He thought they had been serious about capturing sekirei alive when they started shooting darts at him, then they brought out gas grenades, then the electric nets. What next, sonic equipment? He wasn't sure what would be worse, being dead, or being alive and enslaved to a gentically constructed bond to some person, in all likelihood a woman, that he had never met. Even the knowledge that there were, in fact, good ashikabi out there did nothing for him. He wanted the freedom to decide for himself, just like he wanted it for every other sekirei alive.

He muttered to himself; "Better to make a choice rather than pray you get lucky.

He started to push straight through the center, when out of nowhere both his head and torso were engulfed in complete agony. Total pain, indescribable suffering, they were all words but none of them truly gave justice to the bonfire using his body for kindling. And along with the pain, a sense of profound failure. He knew, instantly, what had happened and where this pain originated. Somewhere, somehow, a sekirei had died. In a cruel twist of fate, their death might just prove to be his own undoing as several of the electrified nets landed on him while he was busy convulsing on the ground.

A couple of soldiers ran up to him and shoved gun barrels in his face. One of them decided to speak what was probably on all of their minds. "I think we could get away with killing just this one, avenge everyone that this bastard killed. You with me?"

The others nodded and took aim at his face. He closed his eyes, resigned to peaceful oblivion instead of servitude. He spared a thought for Akitsu however, she deserved that much. A collection of slick sounding impacts erupted, and no bullets entered his skull. He opened his eyes. Shards of ice were protruding from the eye sockets of every soldier that had aimed a weapon at him. Chaos erupted around him, and the battlefield that had quieted with his fall exploded with carnage.

He heard a loud slice and inclined his head in the direction of the sound. "Yomi?"

Number Forty Three flashed him a smart-ass salute, back in her usual attire which he had heard referred to as "French Maid". "Hey boss, need a hand?"

He struggled against the netting. "I think, at the moment, your scythe would be more useful than your hand."

Yomi rolled her eyes, slid the blade between the netting, and started cutting. "I'll give you three guesses as to who bitched until we all agreed to come after you. And I'll give you a hint, it was a girl."

Yomi's levity brought a smirk to his face despite the fact that he was still getting shocked by the nets. "You realize that hint didn't narrow it down at all." He held himself as still as he could to minimize the chance Yomi might cut him. "I'll need one guess, Akitsu."

Yomi yanked on her scythe, coming within an inch of cutting his ear off. "Bingo, the Ice Queen did it!" Number Forty Three looked up, taking her eyes off of her cutting and almost shaving and inch off of his arm. "Speak of the devil, here she comes."

As forecast, Akistu entered his limited field of vision and without warning latched her mouth over his.

In the background, Yomi started giggling. "Boss, remember what you promised Miya about perverted behavior."

He pulled his head away from Akistu. "Yomi, if the day ever comes that I need to take personal advice from you, I will consider myself a complete lost cause. Do me a personal favor, and shut up."

Rapture: Welcome Center

Minato watched in stunned silence from behind cover as Ivan smoothly, and calmly, executed Musubi with two bullets before sprinting off to the side and shouting something undeniably flippant at Musubi's former captor. That same captor had changed from a calm, self-assured man into a raging lunatic in the space of time it had taken for Ivan to run to cover.

The Russian shouted across the chamber at him. "Minato! Shoot out his eyes!"

He shouted back; "Why don't you!"

Ivan held up his elephant rifle; "Out of bullets." Then his shotgun; "Inaccurate."

Faced with that logic, he wasn't left with much choice. He checked his remaining number of rounds, and was alarmed to find that he only had two shots left.

Ivan yelled again; "Just be sure the shots are in quick succession. If they aren't, we're all screwed. If you miss, we're screwed. No pressure!"

He ignored the Russian and tried to calm himself. Picturing each of his living sekirei in his mind helped a great deal. He actually imagined that they were all holding the gun with him. He swung out from cover, took aim, and fired both shots dead on target. He had however, ignored the tentacle rocketing towards his chest. The impact knocked him flat, rather than impaling him. Possibly due to the damage he had done to the wielder of the tentacle?

Tsukiumi cried out; "Ivan-san, what are you doing?"

He shoved himself up. Ivan had rushed from cover and was charging Musubi's former captive like a bull. The flailing tentacles were hitting the Russian, just not stopping him. He watched, helpless, as Ivan tackled the writing mass of pink into the large crevice, vanishing from view. He slowly crept his way towards the crevice, not expecting to find anything. When he looked over the edge, he was astonished to see Ivan hanging on for dear life to a protruding section of copper pipes.

He shouted down; "Ivan!"

The Russian looked up at him, and started to smirk. "What, you didn't write me off immediately, did you?"

He laid down on the edge and started to reach; "Hang on, I'll get you out of there."

Ivan shrewdly remarked on the distance that still remained. "Well Minato, unless you have some kind of special power that lets you stretch your arms an extra two feet, I think I'm doomed."

He waved over his sekirei, all of them; "Come on, help me." He directed them; "grab my legs, lower me down."

It was a portrait of their trust in him that there were no questions. It was also a symbolic moment to show how he had, himself, matured over the course of this nightmare. He would never have even conceived of the idea of using himself as a human rescue rope before this. But now it felt just, natural.

He grabbed Ivan's hand and shouted back up; "Pull!"

Both him and Ivan were dragged upwards in one massive movement. It still wasn't quite enough to bring Ivan up all the way, so the Russian scrambled on the edge and hauled himself up.

Ivan looked back and forth between Tsukiumi and Kazehana, who were still holding onto his legs and breathing heavily from exertion. "Well, that explains why you didn't fall over the edge with me, plenty of ballast on the topside." Ivan then proceeded to laugh at his own smart-ass remark.

Kazehana and Tsukiumi both reacted to the quip in their own way. Kazehana smirked and seemed to be suppressing the urge to laugh herself. Tsukiumi however, she got up and slapped Ivan across the face, which didn't dampen the Russian's mirth in the least.

Ivan eventually stopped laughing, then shook his head in apparent astonishment. "You know Minato, I was half expecting you to leave me to die. For the sole reason of me shooting Air-For-Brains.

He took a deep breath to steady his voice. "No, I, I understand why you did it. Either way Musubi was dead."

Ivan nodded, pride apparent in his voice. "Exactly. Death comes two ways, fast or slow. The difference in this case, is that if we had gone with "slow" we would all have been sharing that fate with the deceased." The Russian jabbed his thumb in the direction of the elevator. "Now let's get out of here before splicers arrive to ruin this occasion any more."

As they all piled into the elevator for the second time, he could not help but look up with a sense of anticipation. He knew that he would never come back to Rapture, but it had made him a better person in roundabout way. He would also never be a burden to his sekirei ever again. That in and of itself made the journey worthwhile. As for Musubi's death, it saddened him, but he wasn't going to dwell on it. The living needed him more than the dead.


	8. Epilogue

Tokyo: Harbor: Three months later

Minato stood on the bow of the ship that Ivan had chartered to bring them home. After all the time he had spent away, he had developed a new appreciation for where he lived. It was true what they said, "you don't know what you have until you lose it." On the subject of losing things though, he had never realized just how much of a disruptive force Musubi had been. Granted, things still happened that made his face turn white out of embarrassment, but a bit less often. In particular, he didn't have Musubi tripping over thin air and smothering him in her chest. Now all he really had to worry about was not becoming some drooling lecher whenever Kazehana opened her mouth, and not bruising Tsukiumi's already fragile self-esteem, and making sure that Matsu didn't do something extremely perverted that got her in trouble... Ok, maybe he still had a lot of problems that he had to deal with. But less than he did before by an order of magnitude.

Ivan shouted at him from the upper deck, his mood a vast improvement over his deep melancholy upon leaving Rapture. "Happy to see it again?"

The Russian seemed to be a new man upon coming out of his funk. Ivan had trimmed both his hair and his beard, he had spent most of the trip tanning his unnaturally white skin from his two years under the ocean, and the pessimism was gone completely. Ivan was still quite the smartass though, and still liked telling perverted jokes. With Matsu, Kazehana, and Tsukiumi repeatedly bearing the brunt of the joke.

He covered his eyes against the sun and called back. "You have no idea."

Ivan started to respond, but he seemed to be distracted by someone else on the upper deck. Moments later the Russian had scooped Kusano up and was sliding down the banister from the upper deck. That was another thing. Outside of perilous situations Ivan was a really playful, fun-loving guy, and that attitude had quickly made him Kusano's best friend.

Ivan gently pushed Kusano away, a devious note in his voice. "Ok, run along now. Drop some ice down Tsukiumi's back for me." Ivan straightened up and smirked in Kusano's direction as the little girl skipped away. "Sweet girl, almost like the niece I never had."

He walked over and commented; "You aren't going to try and turn her into a little imp are you?"

Ivan whipped off a pair of sunglasses and smiled. "Of course not. You wound me with the accusation." A piercing shriek punctuated the relative silence. "She's a little angel for a seven year old, and I really don't care how old she is chronologically."

He cast a glance towards the upper deck, where he heard Tsukiumi's angry voice. "Well, you certainly seem to be having an influence."

The Russian smirked, "Oh, sure I am. But it shouldn't be a problem. For now, Kusano has the innate protection of cuteness."

A small snort of laughter escaped him, then he looked up and was stunned to realize something about his friend. "Since when did you have grey eyes?"

Ivan laughed and flipped the sunglasses back on. "Since always. I'd guess you never noticed it because it was a bit dim down in Rapture. Afterwards I've always been wearing sunglasses because the sun hurts my eyes." Ivan glanced towards the city. "We're almost at the docks, so I'd get on up to the upper deck and make sure your girls get changed. Take a hint from me, don't torture the men of the city by flaunting your harem. Or, in Kagari's case, the women."

He rolled his eyes and waved his friend off. "Yeah, I get it."

Ivan vanished into the passenger area with a wave and he started to climb the stairs to the upper deck. He knew that he would find all four of the girls up here. Kagari was off doing his own thing as usual. When he reached the top of the stairs he was greeted by the sight of a wet Tsukiumi bent over at the waist and lecturing Kusano. Kazehana was lying off to one side on her stomach, nursing a bottle of champagne, with her top untied. As for Matsu, she was creeping up behind Tsukiumi, on her tip toes. Normally he wouldn't think anything of it, but Matsu was currently wearing her rape face. Before he could say anything, Matsu reached out, grabbed the strings of Tsukiumi's bikini top, and pulled.

Ivan took a long look out over the water towards Tokyo. He had never had the opportunity to travel abroad before, unless you counted that brief trip to Iceland before he plunged headlong into his Rapture expedition. Maybe that's what he should do, for know. It had taken him a while to realize it, but with Gil Alexander dead the endless supply of splicers would grind to a screeching halt. The splicers still left down there would eventually rot away completely, leaving the city completely empty. Considering how long Stanley Poole had lived, he had at least eighty something years to spend before he had to worry about dying of old age. Every other option of death seemed rather unlikely now due to amount of ADAM he carried with him. Leaving him to think he had been completely stupid to be so down about leaving Rapture. What Gil had said about ADAM however, did deserve some serious thought. The genetic goo was worse than crack when it came to addictiveness, and the mental degradation it caused did result in the fall of the city into chaos. Still, with some manner of iron-fisted control over ADAM there was no reason that Rapture couldn't be opened to the world.

He shrugged himself into his coat, flipped his sunglasses back on, and started talking to the air. "A problem for a time many years from now. What matters for now, is living in the moment."

He jogged from his room out onto the front deck, and was completely unsurprised when he heard a commotion on the upper deck. Mayhem seemed to follow Minato like a plague, infecting all around him with the urge to do something hilarious. That statement was probably an exaggeration, but not by much. After bounding up the stairs three at a time he was presented with the chaotic scene of Tsukiumi chasing Matsu around the deck at a berserker speed. One arm covering her generous cleavage, the other swinging wildly at Matsu. Minato was lying on the deck, flat on his face, in a small pool of blood that was coming from his nose. Kusano was kneeling at Minato's side, shaking the poor guy in a futile attempt to wake the ashikabi. Kazehana was off to one side, either oblivious to the chaos, or she just didn't care because she was used to it. He thought the odds were tipped overwhelmingly in favor of the latter.

He sauntered over and leaned on the railing near Kazehana. "Let me guess, Matsu thought it would be funny to undo Tsukiumi's top while the blond was lecturing Kusano about dumping ice water down people's backs?"

Kazehana picked her head up and smiled at him. "Very good Ivan-kun. Are you sure you weren't watching all of it over some hidden camera?"

He smirked and took the comedic opportunity that was offered. "Oh, if I were to place a hidden camera, it wouldn't be up on the deck. There are much better opportunities for such a piece of hardware." He shot a glance at the half-finished bottle of champagne within easy reach of Kazehana's right arm. "I trust that the spirits are to your liking?"

Kazehana made a face that was somewhere between a frown and a pout. "It's a bit on the light side."

He laughed, and iced a small portion of the deck ahead of Matsu. "I think you acquired a taste for the heavy stuff down in Rapture. I still havn't forgotten that little stunt with the entire liquor cabinet."

Kazehana remained silent long enough to watch Matsu skid along the ice path to crash down directly atop of Minato's prone body. "Maybe, but I have to remind you that I hadn't had a drink in months."

He rolled his eyes and ignored Tsukiumi's startled scream as she followed Matsu. "Yeah, sure." He smirked, "I'll tell you what. When we get dockside I'll find you a bottle of vodka, and not the cheap stuff they make by the case. I'm talking genuine, made-in-Russia vodka. I am certain that stuff will be able to put even you flat on your ass."

Kazehana pushed herself to her feet, stretched for a moment, then started to walk away towards the passenger area. Leaving both the bottle of champagne and her bikini top behind. "I'll be looking forward to it."

He took a moment to admire the view before snatching the purple piece of fabric off of the deck with Telekinesis. "You forgot something."

Kazehana paused just long enough to throw a glance, and a wink, over her shoulder. "Or did I?"

Minato's revival, and immediately subsequent scream, drew his attention for the slightest of moments. When he looked back, Kazehana was gone.

He muttered to himself; "Dammit girl, stop teasing me. I have rules, but how many temptations do you offer a man before he is expected to break?"

Tokyo: streets

Minato couldn't free himself of the notion that he was being watched. Understandable what with the fact that he was in the company of three beautiful women and, dare he think it, a rather attractive man. Ivan however, was not counted among his current companions. The Russian had skipped out on them after he had heard the address of Maison Izumo, said he had some shopping to do. No, at the moment the attractive man in the group was Kagari. The amusing part, and he was surprised with himself that he found it funny, was that every time they were forced to stop for any reason a group of young girls off to the side would start giggling amongst themselves and start pointing at Kagari. He couldn't tell for sure whether or not the flame sekirei knew about the attention, but the red on Kagari's face was a good hint.

He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down at Kusano. "What is it?"

Kusano swung her head around for a moment before answering. "Onee-chan, are we almost there?"

He looked up to check the street signs, then gently took hold of Kusano's hand. Oddly, like how he used to hold his sister's hand when she was much younger. "It should be right around here. Tokyo can't have changed much in only a few months."

He knew they were on the right street, so all he needed to do was find the sign that hung over the gate. While he was looking up, someone bumped into him. He looked back at the person that passed by, it was a young looking boy wearing a tan-colored hat. As he watched, the boy shouldered his way between Kagari and Kazehana before moving off down the street.

A tug on his sleeve preceded a comment from Kusano. "Onee-chan, that boy took something out of your pocket."

His hand snapped up to feel his left pocket, even though he knew the only thing in it was his wallet. With a sense of indignation fueling him, he whirled about and his eyes immediately fixated on the tan hat slowly strolling away. With a snarl of anger he let go of Kusano's hand and blew between Kagari and Kazehana in pursuit of the thief. When he had closed within ten feet the thief turned to look at him, not as young as he had at first suspected but a thief regardless. The boy began to run, dodging between the few pedestrians that there were, and the chase began in earnest.

Maison Izumo:

Jango sighed to himself and ran the whetstone across the edge of his katana one more time. His time since the MBI attack had become somewhat ironic in hindsight. While the efforts of the business giant to recapture them had died out completely, that headache had been replaced by the much more strenuous task of playing nursemaid to dozens of young women with nothing but time on their hands. It was during these rare moments of quiet that he thanked whatever gods watched over him that he wasn't going at this by himself. Taki, Mutsu, and especially Akitsu. The latter two of whom commanded respect through their strength, the former who could defuse chaotic events before they got too far out of hand through calm reason. Miya however, did not help much. While Number One did still dictate chores to the collection of sekirei in residence here, it was a stop gap measure at best. Either she only managed to snare a few of them into whatever chore she had in mind, or every one of the sekirei pitched in and the chore lasted little more time than it took to take three breaths. And the only thing that came out of downtime around here was chaos. There always was going to be a wild child in any group. That wild one was, of course, Yomi. If ever there was a plot that involved something crazy, demented, or lewd, he could usually find Yomi not very far away, laughing like a demon.

He took his thoughts away from his troubles and finished his sword care by running a dry cloth along the length of his katana before lifting the blade into a shaft of sunlight. "Ah, there we are, and shiny enough so I can see my own reflection. Perfect."

His door opened and Akitsu walked in before taking a seat on the floor in front of him. "I hope I'm not going to have to be jealous of a piece of metal."

He allowed his eyes to travel where they would. From Akitsu's face, down across the cut-out section of her dress that she held together with two crossed chains, down to her hands that she had folded daintily in her lap, and back up. "Trust me, there is no comparison I could make that would do you justice."

Akitsu smiled at him and shook her head. "You are just too sweet."

He started to open his mouth to respond, but shut it with a loud clack when a crash from the front of Maison Izumo drew his attention rather violently.

A bombastic voice crashed through the inn with the force of an explosion. "Hello residents! The Russian is in the house!"

He literally flew down the stairs with one hand on his sword to the front door. When he got there he expected some kind of mercenary company that had been sent to capture the lot of them. What he did not expect to find was a single man standing in the doorway, holding a paper bag, wearing dark glasses, with a long, dark coat open to the waist.

The man in the door looked him up and down before lifting a hand to his face and removing the black glasses. "Judging by the 'I'll kill you if you act threatening' look. I'm going out on a limb and guessing that either Minato neglected to tell you about me, or I beat him here."

Still suspicious, he kept a ready hand on his blade. "I don't know who Minato is, so I suppose it would be the second option."

The other man seemed to be completely unconcerned with the threatening posture. "Oh well. I was sure that he'd get here before me what with all the shopping I had to do. Well, life happens to all of us." The other man shrugged. "I guess I'll just wait here for him."

He stuck his arm out and caught the other man by the shoulder. "Hold it, how exactly do you expect me to trust you?"

The other man glanced down to the hand on his shoulder, then looked back up with a patronizing smile on his face. "Look, you seem like a guy that can handle himself just fine in a brawl. So I think this is what is going through your head, I make any trouble and I die. I've seen enough of sekirei to know that I wouldn't last very long in a house full of hostile individuals." His grasp was brushed off with a dismissive wave of a hand. "Now if you'll excuse me."

He barked one last line at the retreating figure. "Your name?"

The other man whirled about and dropped the paper bag. "Oh where are my manners?" Then extended a hand in his direction. "Ivan Dragovitch at your service. Not literally of course, but you get the gist of it I think."

He shook the offered hand and reciprocated with his own name; "Jango."

Ivan narrowed his eyes for a moment, then smirked. "A suspicious lack of a last name that says only one thing to me." Ivan prodded him in the chest with an index finger. "You, my friend, are also a sekirei."

An odd note of amusement in Ivan's voice piqued his interest. "And why, pray tell, is that so intriguing?"

Ivan started to laugh out loud, as if to a joke only he was privy to. "Oh no special reason. I just wasn't aware that they made hormonally-balanced male sekirei."

Not entirely sure he wanted to hear the explanation, he left it at that. "I, ah, I see." Then he deftly changed the topic. "This Minato you mentioned-"

Ivan cut him off with a perceptive prediction of what he had intended to ask. "He should be getting here fairly soon, and you'll know him when you see him. The boy travels with a walking mountain range of estrogen."

The analogy was completely lost on him; "Ah, what?"

Ivan gave him a completely dumbfounded look. "Were you born yesterday?" When he responded with nothing but silence Ivan went on; "I meant he's got three beautiful women with him, and the notable mention of a little girl, plus the negligible mention of a sexually ambiguous man."

A new voice broke in on the conversation. "What was that about 'sexually ambiguous man?"

Ivan responded without missing a single beat. "What I meant, Kagari, is that you cannot tell whether you are a man or woman just by looking at you. I know you are firmly in the man camp, but others might not see it that way." The Russian grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around to face the door. "Jango-san, meet Minato and his minus one crew. I'm going to get myself temporarily settled in in one of the rooms. Play nice."

Minato still marveled at Ivan's ability to shrug off guilt over killing Musubi. But, as he had said down in Rapture, he didn't blame the Russian for it. Now Ivan was almost telling jokes about it. He had been standing just outside the gates for about two minutes before deciding that the building in front of him was the same Maison Izumo he remembered. The building had undergone a few renovation while he had been away, most of which appeared to be extra bedrooms, but the overall feeling was the same.

Waiting in the front door, after being repositioned by Ivan, was a heavily-muscled man in a samurai hakama, with a mess of scars covering every visible portion of flesh. The man looked a little bit lost to be honest, but Ivan could have that effect on people.

He walked up to Jango, having heard the name from Ivan, and extended his hand. "Jango-san, a pleasure to meet you."

Jango recovered rather rapidly when spoken to, and dove right at the parting comment Ivan had made. "What exactly did that Russian mean by 'minus one?' Because I can clearly tell that all of your companions here are sekirei as well. What happened?"

He debated with himself just how much he should reveal about Rapture. Too much and he'd sound completely crazy. Too little and Jango probably wouldn't believe him. He had a distinct feeling that an angry Jango wouldn't be good for his long term, or short term health.

He started slowly, feeling it out word by word. "Where we were, the people were not at all friendly. One of them took Musubi-san hostage and demanded we all surrender or he would kill her."

A look of understanding dawned on Jango's face. "Ah, I see. So it was a no win situation for you. Either lose her or lose all of them. Not that I approve of the outcome, but you had no control over it." Jango paused for a moment, then seemed to think of something. "I expect that they killed her when you refused to surrender?"

He cringed, as he knew the answer would not be to Jango's liking regardless of the situation, "Well-"

Ivan bound down the stairs and broke in, mercifully saved him from being the bearer of bad news. "Not really. When the standoff came I put a very big bullet in Musubi's empty head."

Jango's mouth opened and shut a few times in complete outrage. "You, you executed Number Eighty-Eight?"

Ivan went on, as brazen as you please. "And then I put my last shot into her dead chest." The Russian's face became serious. "I'm not going to lie to you. I hated that girl with a passion and am not going to shed any tears that she's gone." Ivan then slapped a smile on his face and remarked; "But remember, it was a mercy killing for the greater good."

Jango seemed to be putting a great deal of effort into not exploding with anger, and turned to him. "Is your 'friend' always this infuriating?"

He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Not all of the time."

Tsukiumi added an addendum onto his admission. "Only most of the time."

Ivan let his mouth fall open with an overdramatic, audible gasp. "Dear god, Tsukiumi-chan told a joke. It's a sign of the apocalypse!"

While the Russian was laughing, Tsukiumi rolled her eyes and appeared to fight the urge to laugh herself. "Do you see what I mean?"

Jango's upper lip curled up in distaste. "Yes, I see what you mean perfectly." The samurai look-alike started to walk away, then paused and shot over his shoulder; "You might find it a bit crowded in here. There have been quite a few arrivals as of late."

Ivan waited for Jango to be out of earshot before commenting. "Eh, decent guy I suppose. Seems like he's got a bit of a stick up his ass though." The Russian snatched a paper bag up off the floor. "But never mind him. Like I said, I did some shopping and have a few things to give you." Ivan pulled a square bottle about the size of his head out of the bag and offered it to Kazehana. "As promised, I dare you to finish that without passing out."

Kazehana licked her lips in apparent anticipation. "I think I can do that, you'll see."

Ivan chuckled lightly, "Of I'm sure I will." Then he handed a slim, wrapped package about the size of a small book, to Tsukiumi. "I'd open that in private if I were you."

Tsukiumi gave Ivan a baleful stare. "Please tell me this is not something extremely perverted."

Ivan frowned, "That depends on how you want to look at it." Then Ivan leaned in next to Tsukiumi's left ear and lowered his voice to a whisper.

He couldn't exactly hear what comment Ivan made, but he was immediately aware of the results. Tsukiumi's face turned a shade of red so deep it was almost made her head look like a large tomato. Her lips were now pinched so tightly together he doubted he could part them with a crowbar. Whatever Ivan had said must have really made an impact.

Ivan turned to look at him, smirked, and pulled a very large gun out of one of the pockets on his coat. "Say hello to your little friend."

His instant reaction was to back away and raise his hands, as if he could ward off bullets just by doing that, but something Ivan said made him pause. "What do you mean 'your' little friend?"

The Russian threw back his head and laughed, loudly. "Isn't it obvious?" Ivan presented the gun to him, butt first. "This is my gift for you. A custom made Desert Eagle, gold plated, with your name engraved in the side."

He took the gun and just held it for a moment, pointing it down at the ground. "I, I really don't know what to say. Why spend so much on a gift for me?"

Ivan took a similar gun out of a different pocket and held it in close proximity to his. "Well, that's because this one is more for the both of us. It's a symbolic 'brother's in arms" thing. One of these days I'm going to come back to Tokyo and find you, old and gray, and we'll share the highlights of our lives with each other, sound good?"

He looked back and forth between the gun and his friend. "Surely we are going to see each other between now and the twilight hours of our lives?"

Ivan smiled and slapped him on the shoulder. "Oh you aren't getting rid of me that easily. I'll be sticking around this city for a while yet." The Russian tapped his sister weapon. "And you might want to holster that. I hear guns on open display ruin most reunions."

After Nightfall: Maison Izumo

Minato fell back onto the bed in one of the few remaining empty rooms in the entire inn. In spite of everything MBI had done, Jango had practically filled Maison Izumo to the brim with other sekirei, some of whom he had personally seen beaten. He had had a particularly sour encounter with Number Forty-Three, Yomi as he had learned later. She had slapped him across the face hard enough to make his ears ring. He could still feel the exact place where she had hit him, over two hours ago.

He cupped his hands behind his head and laid it down on the pillow. "Ah, home at last."

What seemed like moments after he shut his eyes he heard something, or more than likely someone, fall against his door. It was rather late, so he was curious as to whom was calling at this hour. Odds favored one of his sekirei, and if that were that case then he definitely should see what they wanted.

As he reached for the handle he opened his mouth and asked probably the single most cliche line in the world. "Hello? Who's there?"

When the door opened he felt himself being pushed back and down. Carried by the weight of the woman who's head was resting on his chest. The faintest whiff of cherry blossoms reached his nose.

Kazehana lifted herself just enough so she could meet his eyes, and licked her lips. "I'm right here. Were you expecting someone else?"

Kazehana's eyelids were drooping, likely a direct result of the large bottle of liquor that she was still clutching in her right hand. From the short view he had gotten of the same bottle he could tell that it was almost completely empty. Amazingly, despite the slightest hint of a slur in her voice, just hearing Kazehana talk made his heart start to race.

He started to respond; "No, I wasn't expecting any-"

The black-haired beauty cut him off quite sharply by latching her lips over his, and forcing her tongue inside of his mouth. What shocked him, was that he found himself reciprocating. He had no idea what he was doing, so he supposed he was just caught up in the moment. Then, as quickly as it had started, the moment was over.

He sat up and found that he actually needed to take a breath before he could say anything. "What, what exactly was that for?"

Kazehana patted him on the cheek like one would a child. "Just making sure you knew..." There was a pause as she took a long drink from the bottle. "... That I loved you."

He was momentarily stunned. Most of his sekirei had never just come out and said it. "Ah, and I was supposed to doubt that at any point?"

Kazehana stood and started to back towards the door, smiling at him the whole way. "No, at least not yet."

Just the way she said that made him feel an uncharacteristic pang of, jealousy? Possessiveness? "Where are you going?"

Kazehana's smile turned into a rape face just as perverted, if not more so, than Matsu's. "I'm just going to give Ivan-kun a little surprise, as a thank you."

Before he could reply, or so much as move, Kazehana had closed his door and was gone. Exactly what kind of "surprise" did she have planned for his friend? He had a disturbing notion that he already knew what she was going to do. His door opened again, and although he expected black, he was greeted with blond. Tsukiumi didn't walk so much as she flowed into the room like the water she so freely commanded. When she knelt down next to him, he noticed that there was a rolled up magazine in her left hand. The thing Ivan had bought for her perhaps?

Tsukiumi held the magazine up and fixated him with the most serious look she could muster, which was quite impressive. "Minato, we need to talk."

Maison Izumo: Ivan's room

Ivan let out a sigh of weariness and tossed his coat onto the floor by the closet. It was physically draining to be in the center of a maelstrom of hyper young women, so now he had something of an idea of what it was like to be Minato. Now that he had some idea, he had zero desire to be in the same predicament. If, by some stroke of fate, he ended up with a sekirei of his own, he would prefer that he end up with only one.

He amended the thought out loud. "Well, maybe two. But no more than that." A few desirable traits popped into his head and he felt compelled to voice them. "Let's see. She'd need to be beautiful. We lust with our eyes before loving with our hearts, sad truth of life. Elegance would be nice, I'd rather not meet the female version of me." He took a moment to chuckle to himself over his last thought. "Last, just the right level of depraved."

It was only now that he heard the creak of his door, and before he could turn around a pair of slender hands draped themselves across his eyes. At the same time a deuce of huge, undeniably feminine body parts pressed against his back. He smelled the unmistakable aroma of high-end vodka, and a whiff of cherry blossoms. Had that always been there?

A voice he knew quite well cooed in his ear; "Guess who."

Even though it was blatantly obvious, he decided to be a smartass just for the fun of it. "Tsukiumi-san? I had no idea I made such an impression." Then he grabbed both of Kazehana's wrists and twisted around, holding both of her hands over her head. He astutely observed; "You are drunk off of your ass."

Kazehana just smiled at him and tilted her head to the side, face flushed from the vodka; "So?"

A long moment passed, and he let go of Kazehana's wrists, allowing his shoulders to slump in defeat. "Alright, fine. You win, I break. Get your perfect ass over here."

Maison Izumo: Foyer

Jango took a deep breath and attempted to slow his pulse. Meditation was only a plausible idea around here at night, when the vast majority of the other tenants were asleep. Come to think of it, it would be a good idea if that same majority tried to implement some meditation on their own. It might do something to alleviate the boredom that drove some of the more insane antics that occurred.

That particular thought brought him to another that he voiced to the thin air. "Maybe if Miya tried some meditation she could learn to let some of the smaller infractions against her rules slide. Maybe..." A sound, or rather, series of sounds caught his attention and made him forget all about meditation. "Is that, no, who would be stupid enough to..." He trailed off as the question was answered for him in a crash of breaking glass.

He made his way over to the East side of the inn and opened the sliding door. On the lawn in nothing but a pair of black boxer shorts, was Ivan. The Russian was standing in the middle of a circle of broken glass shards and staring up at whatever window he flew out of with a fire of rage burning in his eyes.

Ivan crossed his arms and shouted up into the darkness. "Not that the little booty call was my idea, common decency states that you don't interrupt people in the middle of the act."

Miya's monotone voice carried down with icy clarity. "No perverted behavior will be tolerated in my inn."

Ivan tilted his head far enough to one side to elicit a loud crack before responding. "Yeah, and why is that?"

There was a long pause, almost as if this were the first time someone had questioned Miya's authority to her face. "Because I say so."

Ivan smirked, appearing to derive some sort of momentum from Miya's weak response. "Is that so?" A short laugh erupted from the Russian's mouth before he continued. "You know, I think I can come up with the reason you refuse to share."

Yomi appeared at the other side of the sliding door, followed by an assortment of the other residents. "Really? Don't keep us in suspense, spit it out."

Ivan obliged by pointing an accusatory finger up into the air. "You act far too matronly to attract the attention, or affection, of any man or woman. In simple terms, you prohibit others from scoring because you can't get any action for yourself!"

Silence fell, as heavy as a black, leaden shroud. So far as anyone knew, no one had ever dared to openly insult Miya. To do so to her face was nigh unthinkable. He imagined most of the sekirei present expected Ivan to just burst into flames on the spot. Miya descended from the window in one smooth movement and started to slowly walk towards the Russian. Normally the hannya mask floated behind her head when she was angry with someone, now the hannya mask was her face. He believed the proper word for that frame of mind was enraged.

Ivan did not look impressed. "Lady, if you think that is going to scare me then you obviously have never heard of Rapture."

Miya did not respond. Only acted the instant she entered arms reach. Faster than someone could blink she had Ivan by the throat and lifted the Russian up off of the ground. For his part, Ivan looked completely stunned. That look however, soon faded into the look of a warrior.

Ivan's voice sounded strained from the lack of oxygen. "Ok, I'm only going to say this once lady. Let go of my neck now, and I won't hurt you."

He resisted the urge to burst out laughing, barely. The other sekirei gathered in the doorway apparently didn't feel the same way, and did start to laugh, loudly. The utter hilarity of it was that Miya was the second most powerful sekirei in existence, second only to himself. Ivan might have been a physically strong man, but that didn't count for much.

Miya apparently felt the same way, because an utterly evil smile spread across her face. "And how exactly do you propose to hurt me?"

Ivan coughed once, twice, then returned the smile with greater intensity; "Easy." Both of Ivan's hands latched onto Miya's arm; "Like this."

Completely without warning, huge arcs of lightning coursed directly into Miya's body from Ivan's hands. The Landlady did immediately drop the Russian, but the electrical storm continued. Miya's body was twitching and contorting more than any person of sound mind had a right to as every muscle spasmed out of of control. And, just as quickly as it had begun, the storm ceased. The air was filled with the smell of burnt hair, and smoke was rising from the fallen Landlady.

Ivan nudged Miya with his foot enough times to elicit a cough, and smirked. "I did warn you. Why does no one ever listen?"

Maison Izumo: Minato's room

Minato stared at the magazine in Tsukiumi's hand. His current emotions were a paradoxical mix of disbelief, and exasperation. Disbelief that Ivan had actually had the nerve to get something on that particular topic for her. The exasperation, because he fully expected his friend to do something like it.

He read the title out loud. "The Married Woman's guide. Five hundred ways to please your man..." He choked out the last two words; "... in bed." He started to stammer out an apology on Ivan's behalf, but Tsukiumi put both index and middle fingers on her left hand over his lips, effectively silencing him.

The beauty in front of him fixated him with the most serious look he had ever seen, which was saying quite a bit. "Minato, you haven't so much as touched me from the day we became man and wife." Her face turned bright red. "Well, except for that one time when I..." Tsukiumi shook her head vigorously. "But, but that doesn't count! The point I'm trying to make here, is that, as your legal wife, I have rights. I am not going to just stay quiet while you continue to ignore me and..." Tsukiumi started rambling.

As he listened, all of the puzzle pieces finally fit together inside his head. This is what had been bothering her all along. If he was honest with himself, he could say the same thing about every other sekirei bound to him. Only the rest of them really didn't seem bothered by it quite as much. With a clear head, he found himself once again blaming Musubi. A particular incident stood out in his head. One time at the table downstairs he had just been about to kiss Tsukiumi, when out of nowhere Musubi appeared and nearly choked him to death. That this had been going on as long as it had made him feel ashamed of himself.

Acting out of instinct, and with no feeling of obligation whatsoever, he reached out and gently touched the side of Tsukiumi's face. Her rambling stopped as quickly as if her words had been rope, and his touch the guillotine. Slowly, he drew her face to his. At first, his lips just brushed hers, just a taste, a hint of something pure. Then the whole sweet package as he lifted his other hand to hold the other side of her face. He literally felt Tsukiumi melt at his touch, at the contact that she had craved for so long. He felt something wet on his hands, and opened his eyes to look at Tsukiumi's face. Her eyes were closed, and she was crying. Somehow though, he had a distinct feeling that these tears were not of sadness.


End file.
